HELLERTOWN - It would have been easy for Pleasant Valley's Steven Nale to go out quickly and quietly in the opening round of the District 11 Class AAA Tennis Tournament.

But Nale wasn't going to let that happen.The Bears' only representative in the 32-player singles' field, Nale fought back after a slow start and had Emmaus' Cameron Widdoss on the ropes in the second set.Widdoss weathered the storm, however, and went on to post a 6-0, 6-3 victory on Monday afternoon at Saucon Valley High School."I thought Steven showed a lot of mental toughness to battle like he did in the second set," said Pleasant Valley Mark Allison. "It would have been easy for him to check out after getting blanked in the first set. But he battled back and played really well in the second set."He had a great chance to take the second and force a third set, but a couple key points just didn't go his way."Nale jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second set thanks to a couple of adjustments."I tried to have a new mind set," said Nale. "That's what you need to do in tennis. You can't worry about the previous point or the previous set."Coach Allison talked to me about attacking the net a little more and being a little more patient when I was hitting from the baseline. That allowed me to get off to a good start in the second set."Leading 3-1, Nale went up 40-30 in each of the next two games, but Widdoss fought back to win both and tie the score at 3-3. He then won the next three games to finish off the victory."Steven could have potentially been ahead 5-1 in the second set," said Allison. "He just couldn't finish out a couple of deuce games."That's the thing about high school tennis and no-advantage scoring ... there can be a lot of tight games that go to deuce, but if one player wins the majority of those deuce points the final score can be deceiving."Nale praised Widdoss for his ability to fight back in the second set."We had some nice points and nice rallies," said Nale. "I thought I played well throughout the second set, but I have to give my opponent a lot of credit. He won some big points. He's a great player."MOVING ON UP ... Nale played No. 1 singles for the Bears this season after filling the No. 3 singles slot a year ago. He had a 5-12 regular season record.LOADED LINEUP ... Widdoss, who played No. 3 singles for Emmaus, is part of a strong Green Hornet lineup that includes tournament top seed Matt Fritzmaurice.NO SURPRISES ... All eight seeded players won their first and second round matches on Monday to advance to Wednesday's quarterfinals at Parkland.