ALLENTOWN Pleasant Valley picked up an 8-3 win over Bangor in the District 11 Class AAAA softball semifinals, but it wasn't nearly as easy as it might sound.

Not only did the Lady Bears have to wait a day after grabbing a 4-0 lead over Bangor to finish the win, but they had to endure a traffic logjam on the way to Wednesday night's conclusion that had them arriving at Patriots Park in Allentown only about ten minutes prior to the scheduled 5 p.m. start.An accident on Route 22 in Northampton County caught the team up in traffic that pushed their arrival back by about 45 minutes. Pleasant Valley was able to go through just a quick warm-up before taking the field to play the conclusion of the game that started on Tuesday, but was postponed after rain and lightning interrupted the Bears' fast start."Today has been a long day for us," explained coach Steve Caffrey, who noted that some of his players were involved in helping with Special Olympics during the day at school and then had to handle the long bus trip before taking the field. "We had a 4-0 lead, but it wasn't a comfortable lead. That hour and 45-minute ride was tough after we were her last night as well."The game resumed with Kelsey Miczak on first and Crystal Morales batting, with two outs in the bottom of the first. Bangor pitcher Erin Happel, who came on in relief of starter Melissa Langdon in the on Tuesday, not only pitched out of further first inning damage, but shut down the Bears through the next four innings.Meanwhile, Bangor worked to cut into the lead as Kaitlyn Caleen and Courtney Constable each drove in a run in the third inning to make it a 4-2 game.The Bears seemed to come out of their traffic induced hibernation with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. Katie Lenart put Pleasant Valley back on the board with an RBI single to right that drove in Tracey Duebler and Crystal Morales also scored when the ball got past right fielder Lexi Kessler. Jordan Meckes delivered an RBI double and Kiersten Griesback, who led off the first inning hit parade for Pleasant Valley, slashed an RBI single to stretch Pleasant Valley's lead to 8-2, giving them a comfortable lead to work with heading to the final inning.Bangor did mount a small uprising in the seventh when they opened the inning with a double, single and a walk against Duebler, who rebounded to get the next batter on strikes. Constable came up and hit into a fielder's choice that plated a run to make it an 8-3 game, but also left the Slaters with just one out remaining. Duebler hit the next batter with a pitch to reload the bases, but Bangor couldn't do any further damage and watched their season end.Duebler went the distance on the mound for Pleasant Valley and finished the game with 11 strikeouts."That traffic jam killed our mood a little bit, but we just had to execute. It was a bit of a pain to have to come back. We were doing really good and it would have been better if we could have just kept playing," Duebler said about her team's long, strange trip to the finals.Besides holding down the Slaters offense, Duebler collected two hits in the game, including driving in a run with an RBI single in Pleasant Valley's four-run first inning. Duebler may have a little added motivation to help her team in districts, because she's a senior and wants to end her high school career on a high note. She also remembers being a freshman on the Pleasant Valley team that lost to Easton in the 2011 district finals."We came really close that year and I've been looking forward to getting another shot ever since then. It's going to be tough if it's against Parkland, but I think we can pull it off," said Duebler.As Duebler predicted, the Lady Bears (20-4) will face Parkland in the district finals on Thursday.Hopefully, traffic on Route 22 will be better, because for the third straight day, they're headed for Patriot's Park. The Lady Trojans (22-0) downed Northampton 5-3 in Thursday's other semifinal match-up.The three runs scored by Northampton were the most allowed by Parkland since late April when Bethlehem Catholic scored six runs in a 15-6 loss. Only three times this season did the Trojans allow three or more runs in a game, thanks primarily to starter Morgan Rentzheimer, who will get the start against Pleasant Valley.Bangor 002 000 1 - 3 8 1Pleas. Vy. 400 004 x - 8 12 2M. Langdon, E.Happel (1) and K.Smith; T.Deubler and M.Caffrey.