The undefeated Pottsville boys' basketball team isn't just one of the most talented teams in the Schuylkill League, but it is recognized at the state level as well.

Maxpreps.com ranks the Tide as the 17th best high school team in the state, and sixth best at the AAA level.Despite a valiant effort from a talented Tamaqua squad on Monday, Pottsville lived up to its hype and pulled away in the second half en route to a 57-40 Schuylkill League victory.Travis Blankenhorn was on fire in the first half, scoring 22 of the Tide's 31 points as they built a double digit lead. The Kentucky baseball commit finished with a game-high 30 points."They had a good 3-2 zone that caused us some issues," said Pottsville head coach Dave Mullaney. "We wanted to keep attacking and we finally got some low post touches. At times our ball movement was good. We have a very unselfish team that is willing to make the extra pass."We have some kids that are capable of shooting against a zone. They're going to get loose and you'll have to take your chances a bit. Travis's shot has really started to come back the last few games. He's such a tough guard."Tamaqua coach Caszy Kosciolek agreed."He's a tremendous player who can shoot the three, penetrate, and is super athletic," explained Kosciolek. "We just lost him in the first half. It's the first time we played 3-2 zone for an extended period of time and that's going to happen."The Raiders (9-2) came out of intermission and really cranked up the defensive intensity. Kosciolek's squad held the Tide to a seven-point third quarter, and just a bucket in the first six and a half minutes of the frame.However, the Raiders scored just eight points of their on in the period a few open long balls in transition that didn't fall could have completely changed the pace of the game."We were down 18 against Pleasant Valley recently, and we talked about that at halftime," Kosciolek said. "These kids do a great job of staying in the moment and the current possession. With how well we played defensively in the third quarter, we should have gotten into our sets more if we wanted to have success."We need to work on getting more passes in our offense in order to have high percentage shots. You need to execute in your half court sets in crunch time to be successful."The Tide (9-0) then showed it more gas in the tank at the end as it used a 10-2 spurt in the middle of the fourth frame that put the game out of reach."Our game plan was to try and take (Bo) Rottet and (Brett) Kosciolek out of it as much as we could," Mullaney explained. "They're going to score regardless, but I thought we did a decent job."We haven't had a lot of close games thus far. To come into this environment and get a win is going to be big moving forward. I like how unselfish this team is, they are great kids to be around."Rottet (11 points) and Kosciolek (14 points) were the leading scorers for Tamaqua, but it just wasn't enough offense at the final horn."For us to play like we played against a Pottsville team that competes against teams such as Wilson West Lawn and Williamsport is great," said coach Kosciolek. "We had some kids step up for us. Russ (Blaker) did a lot of nice things for us defensively.I'm really proud of them and I think this game allowed them to grow up heading into the rest of our league play."POTTSVILLEHinchliffe 0-1-2-1, Painter 3-1-3-10, Blankenhorn 10-7-10-30, Dunkel 0-0-0-0, Melochick 1-7-9-9, Witman 0-0-0-0, Abado1-0-0-0-2, Nabholtz 2-0-2-5. TOTALS: 17-16-26-57TAMAQUAShillko 0-0-0-0, Blaker 3-0-0-9, Miller 0-0-0-0, Rottet 4-2-2-11, Zuber 0-0-0-0, MacDonald 1-0-0-2, Ty. Skripko 2-0-0-4, Kosciolek 5-3-5-14. TOTALS: 15-5-7-40Pottsville 18 13 7 19 - 57Tamaqua 11 8 8 13 - 40Three-pointers: P - Painter 3, Blankenhorn 3, Nabholtz 1; T - Blaker 3, Rottet 1, Kosciolek 1.