Over the years, the Pine Grove girls basketball team has built a reputation.

That reputation's foundation has been fortified with the ability to hustle and pressure the opposition, which had been a successful formula for consistent postseason success.On Wednesday night, the Cardinals were able to use those two attributes to come away with a 49-32 Schuylkill League Division 1 victory over Jim Thorpe.The Cardinals (4-3) used that pressure to get out to 10-2 first-quarter lead. The Olympians weren't able to take care of the ball in the opening quarter, which led to Pine Grove's eight-point advantage. The Cardinals' full-court zone pressure once again helped them get off to a good start."Early on, we just turned the ball over too much," said Jim Thorpe head coach Rob Kovac. "Once we started to get the ball up the floor, we got some good looks. We just have to be able to finish better. We had some finishing issues tonight, but after we got through the first five minutes, we really battled."Thorpe (5-4) got back into the game in the second frame, outscoring Pine Grove 10-8 to trail by just six at the half. As Kovac noted, the Olympians settled down and did a better job handling the Cardinals pressure."I think we needed to do a better job of finishing around the bucket tonight, especially in the first half," said Pine Grove head coach Bill Evans. "They did a really nice job of staying in the game, especially without their leading scorer."Overall, it was a sloppy game for us, but we came out and handled their pressure they threw at us in the second half, and in the end got a league road win."In the second half, the Cardinals lead dwindled to single digits a few times, but the Olympians couldn't get that one bucket to gain back momentum. The Cardinals outscored Thorpe 31-20 in the second half, which was enough to pull away for the comfortable victory.With the Olympians leading scorer and the Times News area's leading scorer in Kayley Kovac not playing, coach Kovac saw many positives from his ball club."We can take a lot of positives away from tonight. The final score didn't dictate how this one went, we just needed to make a play or two here or there and we could've made it really interesting," Kovac said. "I think we're on track for a postseason berth and almost right where we want to be. We just have to close the gap a bit and keep getting better."MISSING IN ACTION ... The Olympians' Kayley Kovac missed the game after receiving a mandatory one-game suspension because she was called for a flagrant foul in the Olympians' previous game agaist Lehighton.LEADING THE WAY ... Rachel Edge led Pine Grove with a game-high 11 points. Natalia Richards and Kaitlin Ohl scored seven points each for Jim Thorpe.PINE GROVEConrad 2-1-2-5, Edge 5-1-2 -11, Shiffer 3-0-0-6, Flick 0-0-0-0, Butler 1-0-0-2, Kaufman 1-4-6-6, Sleva 3-1-1-7, Frew 1-2-2-4, Boyer 3-2-2-8. TOTALS: 19 -11-15 -49.JIM THORPERichards 1-4-4-7, P. Kovac 0-0-4-0, Condly 1-0-2-2, Ohl 3-1-2-7, Naranjo 1 -2-4-4, Lignore 2-2-7-6, Gabel 2-2-2-6. TOTALS: 10 11-25 32.Pine Grove 10 8 17 14 - 49Jim Thorpe 2 10 13 7 - 32Three-pointers: JT- Richards 1.