Pleasant Valley won its last three regular season games just to get to qualify for the postseason. The young Bears team even beat Freedom in the first round to keep that streak going.

But their season came to an end when a more veteran Easton team jumped on the Bears early en route to a 6-2 win in yesterday's District 11 Class AAAA quarterfinal match up."Once you get to this point you can't make mistakes and if you do you have to be able to minimize them," said Pleasant Valley head coach Charlie Inserra. "Today we made more mistakes than them. We may have showed our youth a little bit early in the game."Rovers starter Ryan Bonfanti had a lot to do with that. The senior struck out four and walked two over six innings. He allowed only one hit through his first five innings, while throwing first-pitch strikes to 14 of the first 19 batters he faced. He allowed two runs on a walk and three hits in the sixth but got out of that jam and handed a four-run lead to Easton's closer."He didn't hurt himself," said Inserra. "He threw a tremendous amount of strikes and did what we didn't do early, which is he forced us to beat them."Easton, the No. 3 seed, had a bye into the game and started their ace pitcher. The Bears (11-11) earned the No. 11 seed and beat No. 6 seeded Freedom 3-2 Monday.In Wednesday's quarterfinal, the Rovers took a three-run lead in the first inning on a walk and two singles. The inning including one Bears' error and another misplayed ball that allowed an Easton base runner.Pleasant Valley used an Easton error and a walk to put runners on base in the second inning, but the host Rovers turned a 1-5-3 double play to end the threat."They are terrific defensively," said Inserra. "This is the first time we've seen them. Their infield made about three real outstanding plays. When you fall behind early against a team that plays like this defensively, you have to manufacture the rally yourself. We're not there yet offensively, but you live and you learn."Easton tacked on another run with a pair of hits in the second inning before Inserra called on Nicholas Domenici to relived Hardy, a sophomore.The senior did his best to keep his high school career alive. He struck out his first batter before giving up a hit that led to a run and a 5-0 deficit.But that was the only hit Domenici allowed. He gave up a run on a walk, two stolen bases and a passed ball, but he cooled off the Rovers bats for the rest of the game."We did a lot of the things we needed to do early," said Easton skipper Carm DaLuca. "I have to tip my cap to Domenici he came in and kind of slammed the door on us. Thankfully we had a decent enough lead and our pitching held up and we were able to pull out the win. Give credit Pleasant Valley. They hung in there."The Bears made it 6-2 in the the sixth inning when Matthew Konopke drew a lead off walk before back to back singles by Travis VanHouton and Domenici loaded the bases.Konopke scored on a fielder's choice and VanHouton came in on Walker Wentzler's single.Bonofanti got out of the inning with a fly out and strike out. Alex Kounoupis came in for the seventh inning to close out the win."We battled late in the game, which is what we've been doing all year," said Inserra. "There are a couple plays we would like to have back but I'm proud of our effort."While the Bears wanted to keep the season alive, they got some experience for a team that has six sophomores and freshmen in the starting line up. They faced a Rover team that starts nine juniors and seniors.Inserra was pleased to see his young team progress throughout the season and is excited for the future of the program."Overall our team has played so much better late than we played early," he said. "As a coach that's what I'm looking for. When you have that many young starters and they play great down the stretch and make the playoffs and win a playoff game you've got to feel good about that."Pleasant Vy. 000 002 0 - 2 4 2Easton 320 010 x - 6 6 2Hardy, Domenic (2) and Pandolfo; Bonfanti, Kounoupis (7) and Smith. W - Bonfanti. L - Hardy.