(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Times News will be running a series of stories asking area coaches and athletic directors to recall their “Most Memorable” sporting event. Today’s Most Memorable moment comes from Pleasant Valley girls basketball coach Nadia (Gauronsky) Pavuk.)

By Patrick Matsinko

pmatsinko@tnonline.com

A year after claiming its first Mountain Valley Conference championship in six seasons, Pleasant Valley entered the 2011-12 campaign flying under the radar, due in large part to the fact that the program had a vastly different lineup than the previous year’s title-winning team.

Without feeling like a target was on their backs, the Bears once again felt like the hunters, not the hunted.

“What was really special about that team was there was only one returning starter from the previous season, which was Kelecia Harris,” PV girls basketbalkl coach Nadia (Gauronsky) Pavuk said of the senior. “So everybody else was just a role player. I had a group of sophomores, who had little time at the varsity level, and then I had Amber Chieffo, who was coming in off the bench from the previous team.

“We had a really good team the year before (when we won the MVC title) but I had lost four seniors. So I had a team that was in a total rebuilding year, and no one really expected anything from us that season.”

Harris played a key role in helping Pleasant Valley knock off Pocono Mountain West for the second year in a row in 2012. Her 19 points and 22 rebounds were crucial in the 60-55 overtime victory in the MVC title game on Feb. 17.

Chieffo drilled a clutch three-pointer to put the Bears ahead 56-51 in overtime, marking the first time a team was ahead by more than four since midway through the second quarter. The senior finished with 13 points.

“We had a flood of underclassmen, with Keri Dekmar, Jordan Meckes, MacKenzie Dorney, and it was really tough for us to get back to where we had been the year prior,” said Pavuk, whose team knocked off the Panthers 52-47 in overtime for its first MVC title since 2005 a year earlier.

“We didn’t have any expectations on us, so I think that was a good thing. But for us, it meant that we had to work really, really hard all season.”

Pavuk’s team rallied after trailing 9-0 in the first five minutes of the game and withstood a balanced scoring attack from Stephanie Davis (18 points), Jackie Benitez (13) and Ramona Benitez (12).

Chieffo buried a pair of free throws to give Pleasant Valley a 51-48 lead with 0:31 remaining in regulation. But Jackie Benitez hit a three-pointer with 0:18 left to send it to overtime.

After a PMW turnover, Harris pushed the Bears ahead at 53-51 just 33 seconds into overtime before Chieffo hit the three-pointer that helped seal the win.

“It was a good team of great kids who just wanted to win, and were willing to do whatever it took to win,” said Pavuk. “For us, it was a bunch of kids that could score six points a game - and we got six points out of each of them. And that meant something.

“They accepted their role, whether they were coming in off the bench; or they were starting. There were no complaints ... and there were different times throughout those games in those playoff situations where one of them came up big.”

It was the same type of effort that propelled the Bears to a 44-42 win over the Panthers in the first round of the district playoffs a week later.

Harris again led the Bears in scoring with 11 points, while Chieffo had eight and Arden Cisluycis and Dekmar both netted six.

“Arden Cisluycis is a kid who was coming off the bench and she really got limited time,” said Pavuk. “She was mostly out there for her defensive play, and against Whitehall, to get third-place in the district ... she ended up with 13 points.

“Even the game prior to the MVC championship, Jordan Meckes, was a sophomore, had 20 points against Pocono Mountain East. So when you look at that stuff and when you think about, ‘OK, you’re a role player,’ kids don’t like to hear that nowadays. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t come up big.”

Pleasant Valley’s season ended with a loss to Council Rock South in the state playoffs. But the Bears proved what a team was capable of when it worked together.

“It was funny how that group of sophomores really knew what their role was; they knew it and accepted it,” said Pavuk. “All of them knew that if I don’t score points, my role is to get rebounds; or my role is to go in and do well defensively. They knew what their role was, and they accepted it.

“And that’s what made that team special. And that’s why that team got as far as they did, because it was kids who came to the game and did well and did what they had to do to have a successful team.”