Two weeks ago, the Pleasant Valley girls basketball team received a drubbing when it traveled to Stroudsburg.

Fast forward to Friday night when the Lady Bears faced their foe again with some incentives on the line. By the end of the night, Pleasant Valley had avenged its earlier 23-point setback by beating the Mounties, 51-48.Entering the contest, the Lady Bears needed wins in three of their last four games in order to qualify for the post-season - a team goal since the beginning of the year."The girls are fighting for their playoff lives," Pleasant Valley head coach Nadia Gauronsky said. "With the seniors, it is really important to them and the younger girls as well. It's great to get this one, though, especially after the way we lost to them the first time we played them."Joyce Sullivan hit a triple to start the second half that gave the Bears the lead at 30-28 - a lead they never relinquished through the remainder of the contest. The winners went on to outscore the Lady Mounties 16-9 in that pivotal frame as Masani Francis hit for six points and Renee Milos dropped in five."I think we played well tonight as a team," Francis, a sophomore, said."We played hard on defense, and on offense, we weren't really finishing early on in the game, but in that second half, we started to."Both teams utilized their pressure defense to transition into some easy buckets, but it was the Bears' backcourt combination of Kiki Russell, Francis and Sullivan that managed to maintain composure enough to snare the victory.In fact, in the fourth, Stroudsburg eventually converted on some Bear turnovers to close the gap to 44-42 with 3:18 remaining when Natalia McLaren hit two free throws.However, Russell turned a steal into a break-away layup, made a free throw after another Mountie miscue, and fed Sullivan underneath the basket for a 5-0 run that made it 49-42 with two minutes to go and sealed the decision."Even though we made some mistakes tonight, I think we played under a lot more control," Russell said. "When (Stroudsburg) made a run, we didn't give in, or give up, like we may have in the past. We went right back to it and got the win."MISSION POSSIBLE? ... With Lehighton, Pocono Mountain East and East Stroudsburg North remaining for the 9-10 Lady Bears, they need to win two of those games to qualify for the District 11 playoffs. With a win over East earlier in the season, and a four-point loss to North, their chances of succeeding seem reasonable.QUITE THE OCCASION ... Pleasant Valley and Stroudsburg took part in a doubleheader as the boys' teams followed the girls' contest. Also, it was the Bears' Breast Cancer Awareness night as well as their "Army Strong" game. Following the conclusion of the game, Kiki Russell was presented with a plaque for being selected the player of the game.STROUDSBURGHines 4-0-0-9, Williams 5-1-2-11, McLaren 4-2-2-10, Stuart 3-3-4-9, Johnson 1-0-0-2, Byra 0-3-6-3, Powlette 1-0-0-2, Schouppe 0-2-2-2. TOTALS: 18-11-16-48.PLEASANT VALLEYBorger 4-0-0-8, Sullivan 2-2-5-7, Francis 6-1-2-15, Russell 2-5-6-9, Salmon 1-1-1-3, Milos 4-1-2-9. TOTALS: 19-10-16-51.Stroudsburg 13 15 9 11 - 48Pleasant Valley 13 14 16 8 - 51Three pointers: S - Hines 1; PV - Francis 2, Sullivan 1.