Easton head coach Ben Childs knew it was coming.

And for 16 minutes Friday night, his Red Rovers struggled to match it.Then the second half started.After a sluggish first half, the Easton boys' basketball team found its rhythm and pulled away from Pleasant Valley for a 48-31 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference victory."We didn't play a very good first half," said Childs. "To (Pleasant Valley) coach (Matt) Gould's credit, he's got his guys playing really hard. And I told our guys that in the locker room."We knew that coming in. I told our guys in the locker room that if we don't match their intensity, they're gonna beat us. And to his (Gould's) credit, he has them playing very hard, and I didn't think we matched their intensity in the first half. In the second half, we did."Mohammad Dumbuya's dunk to open the third quarter set the tone for the Red Rovers (5-5).Dumbuya's slam tied the game at 18-18, and Easton outscored Pleasant Valley 32-13 over the final two quarters."We put up on the board at the beginning of the game … keep them under 50 at the end of the game, and in the first half we did that. Throughout the game we did that," said Gould. "Our defensive intensity was there."But in the second half, Easton's Arnel Lewis was able to work around that pressure, scoring 18 of his game-high 23 points in the final two periods."We changed up a couple of things offensively," said Childs. "They were boxing-and-one Arnel Lewis and it was the first time we had seen that. So we had to make a few adjustments on that."Gould's strategy got the Bears (4-5) the lead at 18-16 after two quarters."We just try to give our guys an opportunity to win, and make them take difficult shots," Gould said. "We knew they were big, we knew that they would take open threes if we were giving them, we just then had to clean up the boards, and we did that. We did that in the first half."Pleasant Valley erased a 14-8 deficit in the first half by closing out the second quarter with a 10-2 run. Back-to-back threes at the end of the second by Isaiah Howard, who had 13 of PV's 18 first half points and finished with a team-high 16, gave the Bears the lead heading to the break.But Easton's size and length on defense kept the Bears from sustaining the momentum.A three by Howard with 5:20 remaining in the third quarter made it 21-21 but Easton responded with a 12-0 run that stretched into the fourth quarter."They're long, they're big," Gould said of the Red Rovers. "They extended that 1-2-2 (defense). But we expect our guards to be able to get by that first guy, but right now … they weren't able to get by that first guy and give our offense an opportunity to get setup."They're long, and it shrinks the court. And when we're trying to spread it out it makes it difficult."REMATCH… Easton handed Pleasant Valley a 27-12 setback in the first round of the District 11 Class 6A football playoffs this year.SIDELINED… Pleasant Valley's Chris Barker was sidelined Friday with an ankle injury suffered earlier this week against Pocono Mountain West.A FIRST… Easton earned its first road victory of the season Friday against Pleasant Valley. The Rovers had been 0-4 on the road.EASTONKoch 1-0-0-3, Boylan 0-3-4-3, Olsen 2-0-1-4, Herres 3-0-1-8, Lewis 6-8-15-23, Dumbuya 1-1-2-3, Nimeh 0-0-0-0, Quezada 0-0-0-0, Fahie 2-0-0-4. TOTALS: 15-12-23-48.PLEASANT VALLEYAulder 0-1-2-1, Robinson 1-0-0-2, Howard 6-0-0-16, Richardson 1-1-2-3, Neubert 2-0-0-4, Scarboro 0-0-0-0, Gerolimatos 2-0-0-5, Prator 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 12-2-4-31.Easton 11 5 15 17 - 48Pleasant Vy. 8 10 3 10 - 31Three pointers: Easton - Lewis 3, Herres 2, Koch 1; Pleasant Valley - Howard 4, Gerolimatos 1.