This year's Panther Valley baseball team has every reason to hold high expectations.

With seven returning seniors on the roster, along with the wealth of talent that accompanies that experience, head coach John Cooper is waiting. With patience wearing thin, Cooper and the rest of the black and yellow faithful are champing at the bit, knowing that it's only a matter of time before the results match the expectations.However, Mahanoy Area made them wait a little longer.The Golden Bears withstood a late comeback attempt by the Panthers and held out for a 6-2 Schuylkill League baseball win."We had an opportunity to score some runs early on and we didn't execute," Cooper said. "Overall, we're just not hitting the ball."Mahanoy doubled up the locals in hits, as the winners spread out 10 hits to the Panthers' five."We definitely need to pick things up and play a lot better from here on out," he said.Despite the outcome, there were definitely signs of greatness from thePanthers as Jake Szczecina and Jake Kusko both managed RBI-singles in the fifth and sixth frames.Mahanoy head coach Jason Gerber knew what to expect from the opposition and was proud of his team's ability to step up offensively."It was a good win for us today," he said. "The bats came alive today and we had some timely hitting. We've had runners on base before in the season, but we needed to bring them in and today. I thought we did a good job of doing that."Winning pitcher Jason Richmond helped out his own cause by scoring three runs for his team and nabbing two hits to lead the Golden Bears to their first win of the season. Meanwhile, Nolan Fegley had two hits and two RBIs."I've been expecting us to hit like this all year and today, that was our strategy coming in," Gerber said. "I thought (Richmond) did a great job on the mound today, getting out of a lot of jams, controlling his fast ball, his off-speed pitches, and he came through for us, because every out was a tough out to get."For the Panthers, an opportunity looms in the near future, with a double-header awaiting them on Saturday afternoon. With Lehighton and Lincoln Leadership Academy set to travel to their home field, the Panthers can get things going nicely."We have to get right back on the horse on Saturday and pick things up," said Cooper. "We can come out and play a lot better baseball than what we are playing now."Mah. Area 002 210 1 - 6 10 1Panther Vy.000 01 0 - 2 5 3Richmond and Fegley; Szczecina, Stano (5) and Buss. W - Richmond. L - Szczecina.