Sometime a team has to shoot its way out of a close game.

On Friday night against Pine Grove, Lehighton was able to do just that.The Indians used back-to-back three-pointers midway through the second quarter to steal the momentum away from a scrappy Cardinals bunch. From that point on the Tribe never looked back and cruised to a 51-38 Schuylkill League victory.The Cardinals kept it close for most of the first half until Lehighton sharpshooter Damian Mele came through with the aforementioned back-to-back triples around the three-minute mark in the second. With the game tied at 15-15, Mele hit two well contested pull up jumpers from the outside to ignite a Tribe 12-4 run to end the half."Damian has been a good shooter for us and he can put some shooting streaks together. He was able to do that tonight and that's what got our run started," said Lehighton head coach Rich Oertner. "He actually missed 12 three-pointers in a row coming into tonight's game, but he played with confidence tonight and shot the ball really well. Those two shots were definitely the turning point for us."Carrying a nine-point lead into the half, the Indians didn't let up. An 11-2 run extended Lehighton's lead to 18.Another key to the Indians success on the night was their ability to handle Pine Grove's pressure. The Cardinals, who were behind for most of the game, tried to slow the Lehighton offense down with full-court pressure, but Tribe point guard Andre McDowell was able to knife through the Cardinals defense on a consistent basis. McDowell's ability to beat the press put the Indians in a ton of quality spots to score on the evening."Andre can really handle the ball, let's face it, he might be the best pure point guard in the league," Oertner said. "He does a lot of things that help us and he makes things easy on us on the offensive end with his ability to create."I honestly didn't think we'd be in this position right now, but if you told me before the season that we were going to have this many wins already, I would've told you that Andre had to be a big reason why."The Cardinals entered the fourth down 14 and could never recover. At the four minute mark in the fourth, the Indians put the game away, extending their lead to 20 after two Donnie Buchinsky free throws."Lehighton is a really athletic team and we had a tough time matching up with them tonight," said Pine Grove head coach Frank D'Agostino. "They did a good job of spreading us out and attacking and they hit some outside shots and were able to make a run. After that, we got down by too much and couldn't recover."LEADING SCORERS ... For Lehighton, Damian Mele scored all of his game-high 15 points in the second half, while Donnie Buchinsky chipped in with 10. For Pine Grove, Jake Leininger led the way s with 14 points.FOR THE RECORD ... Lehighton is now 12-3 overall and 6-2 in the league. The Cardinals fall to 5-10 overall and 0-8 in league play.PINE GROVELbara 2-0-1-6, Kreiser 0-0-0-0, Pena 1-0-0-3, Griffins 2-0-0-5, Culbert 0-0-0-0, Leininger 5-3-4-14, Snedden 3-0-0-8, Griffiths 0-0-0-0, Routledge 1-0-0-2. TOTALS: 14-3-5-38.LEHIGHTONTroxell 1-2-5-6, Carpenter 3-0-0-6, Schaeffer 0-0-0-0, McDowell 4-1-2-9, Crum 0-0-0-0, Buchinsky 3-3-4-10, Mele 4-2-2-15, Howland 3-0-0-7, Venuto 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 20-7-13-51Pine Grove 6 12 8 12 - 38Lehighton 13 14 13 11 - 51Three-pointers: PG - Lbara 2, Snedden 2, Pena 1, Griffins 2, Leininger 1; L - Mele 2, Howland 1, Buchinsky 1.