HELLERTOWN - If you are looking solely at the bottom line, then Pleasant Valley's performance on the opening day of the District 11 Class AAA tennis tournament was definitely a 'net' loss.

But sometimes even when the bottom line contains negative numbers, there are still plenty of credits on the balance sheet.That was the case on Wednesday at Saucon Valley High School when all three Bears' singles players were eliminated on the opening day of competition.Madison Olexson, who entered as the tourney's No. 4 seed, breezed to an opening round win, but was upset in the second round by Eiman Nazif of Whitehall. Meanwhile, the Bears' Kara Urland and Paola Mieles both suffered straight set loses in their opening matches.Veteran Pleasant Valley coach Mark Allison did his own calculations of the Bears' performance, however, and found much better numbers than the scoreboard indicated."I thought we had some tough draws," said Allison. "Paulo (Mieles) went up against a seeded player and Kara (Urland) had the No. 2 singles player on a very good Nazareth team."Even Madison (Olexson) had a tough matchup after opening with a win. The girl from Whitehall that she lost to had a really good record playing No. 1 singles this year and could have easily been one of the top eight seeds."Allison also said all three of his girls played much better than their scores would have you believe."I think the scores were a little deceiving," he said. "We had a lot of long, back-and-forth rallies in all the matches and most of the games were very competitive. It seemed like we lost a lot of close games."Olexson's 6-1, 6-2 loss to Nazif might have been the best indication of what Allison was talking about. It followed on the heels of her 6-0, 6-0 victory over East Stroudsburg South's Amanda Jackson in the opening round."I thought I played one of my best matches of the season," said Olexson, who has a 13-5 record playing No. 1 singles in the newly formed Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. "She (Nazif) just seemed to be one step ahead of me."Every long rally we had, she seemed to find a way to win it. I don't know if there was a lot I could have done differently. That's why even though I'm disappointed that I lost, I'm not disappointed with how I played."The matches that involved Urland and Mieles were quite similar long rallies, close games, but not much to show for it in the end.Urland, the Bears' No. 2 singles player during the regular season, lost to Nazareth's Amber Achenbach, 6-0, 6-2. Mieles, who has an 11-6 record as PV's No. 3 singles player, fell to Emma Angle of Northampton, the tournament's seventh-seed, 6-1, 6-1.Although the singles tournament is over for Pleasant Valley, the Bears could have as many as three teams in next week's District 11 Doubles Tournament and they have also qualified for the District 11 Team Tournament the following week."It's always a little tougher to find bright spots after a loss, but I think we still had plenty to be proud about," said Allison. "I was really happy with how Madison, Kara and Paola all battled hard even when they fell behind. That says a lot about their character and their work ethic."It's was also nice to see our program get the respect it did by having three players selected to play in the tournament. Not only is it the first time in school history that we have had that many make it, but we were one of just three schools that got three players in this year's field."Seven of the eight seeded players in the AAA field advanced to Friday's quarterfinal round with Whitehall's Nazif the only unseeded player left in the field.