After an opening night loss to Whitehall on Friday, Leighanna Lister was hoping to find a way to get rid of those early-season jitters for good.

Over a stretch of the opening period Saturday against Pleasant Valley, it looked as if those jitters hung around longer than expected.It wasn't until the final two minutes of the game that Lister got the chance to step up, overcome those nerves, and help her Tigers find a way to build enough confidence to pull away with a 54-49 victory over the Bears.It was Northwestern coach Chris Deutsch's choice to get the ball into his young sophomore's hands, and in the process help her get over those nerves."We were harping on her teammates to get her the ball," Deutsch said. "That was the plan coming out of the timeout (with 2:03 left) in the fourth quarter. She has to get more touches on the ball. We believe when she gets around the basket she's a really good player. We expect her to be a double-digit scorer."I don't care if she's only a sophomore. We expect when she gets the ball around the basket, she's got to score for us."Shortly after Lister scored on a putback to break the third tie of the final quarter, Deutsch called a timeout to push the issue more. After the Tigers broke the huddle, and after two key Mikaela Koenig free throws, Lister looked as if she received an instant confidence booster and began to take the game into her own hands.With close to under a minute to play, and the Tigers only up by three, Lister pounded the boards on consecutive visits down the floor. The end result was two right-handed lay-ups giving the Tigers a 52-45 lead with 36.6 seconds left.The Bears' Masani Francis hit a free throw and Joyce Sullivan nailed a three-pointer, but it wasn't enough as Erika Thomas hit the final two of her 16 free throw attempts to keep the Tigers in control.Lister, a 5-foot, 11-inch center finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds to help the Tigers secure their first win of the season."This one was really important to us," Lister said. "It served as a confidence booster for us. It just feels really good to shake off these nerves a bit."A lot of us sophomores coming up were really nervous at our first game, but now I think in our second game we played a lot better and were a lot more comfortable. I know I felt more comfortable."As happy as the Tigers were with the victory, that's how upset Pleasant Valley coach Nadia Gauronsky was about the way the game played out."We had them down 11 and we decided to let them back in it - that just can't happen," Gauronsky said. "We need to learn to play more aggressively and play aggressively enough without getting in foul trouble. But most importantly we need to learn to maintain leads without blowing them."FIVE IN A ROW ... In the non-conference showdown between the teams, Northwestern has now won the last five meetings. The last time Pleasant Valley won was back on Dec. 23, 2010.LETTING ONE GET AWAY ... Pleasant Valley had full control of the game early on as it led 15-4 after one period of play. After that, Northwestern went on a run of its own to knot the game up at 17-17 at intermission. In the second half, there was seven ties and eight lead changes before the Tigers took the lead for good with 2:28 left in the game.PLEASANT VALLEYBorger 3-4-7-11, Sullivan 3-2-4-10, Miller 0-0-1-0, Jones 0-0-0-0, Francis 4-1-3-10, Borden 1-0-0-3, Russell 4-2-2-11, Salmon 0-0-0-0, Milos 1-2-6-4. TOTALS: 16-11-23-49.NORTHWESTERNLister 7-3-9-17, Chisdak 0-0-0-0, Sevrain 2-1-1-5, Pasquale 0-0-0-0, Koenig 3-2-2-8, Williamson 3-2-6-8, Dietrich 0-0-0-0, Thomas 1-13-16-16. TOTALS: 16-21-34-54.PV 15 2 16 16 - 49NW 4 13 17 20 - 54Three-pointers: PV - Sullivan 2, Borger 1, Francis 1, Borden 1, Russell 1; NW - Thomas 1.