Pleasant Valley only scored in two innings of its District 11 Class 5A quarterfinal game against Whitehall.

But the Bears made the most of those frames on Tuesday, plating eight runs to earn the win.

That, and a hold-your-breath seventh inning, allowed PV to earn an 8-6 victory and a berth in Saturday’s semifinal round.

The Zephyrs got two runs in the top of the seventh and had the go-ahead run at the plate, but reliever Ben Mostosky got Tyler Reichenbach to fly out to left field to end the game.

“We started a little slow,” Pleasant Valley head coach Joe Anderton said. “We’ve been off for a week-and-a-half. We haven’t seen a live arm, with the exception of batting practice. It was good to come out swinging the bats aggressive, and then we settled in a little bit.”

After Whitehall jumped out to a 3-0 lead, the Bears scored three times in the home third to tie the score. Nate Loch tripled home Austi Ratti to get PV on the board, Dakota Lucas hit a sacrifice fly, and Mostosky delivered an RBI single.

One inning later, Pleasant Valley put up another crooked number.

Thanks to several Whitehall errors and some timely hits, the fourth-seeded Bears pushed across five runs to make it 8-3 in their favor.

“We started to put the ball in play and scratch a few runs across,” Anderton said. “We had a good inning there in the fourth to get ourselves a nice lead. We certainly weren’t comfortable with that lead, but these kids have had a great week of practice and worked hard.

“The week-and-a-half we had off, we really tried to put some things together to work on our defense. Offensively, as well, we just really tried to put together the complete package so that we’re more consistent, and that was huge.”

Pleasant Valley senior Jack Smale knocked in one of the fourth-inning runs. Smale also scored one of his team’s eight runs.

“We started off a little slow, but we kept energy the whole time and kept fighting and we came out on top,” Smale said. “We just made sure we kept at it and never gave up and just kept going.

“We had a good week of practice. We haven’t played for a while, so we’re just working on the things we need to. Everything that we thought we needed to work on, that’s what we worked on. We’re just looking to be ourselves, play our game and just come out and beat Bangor (in the semifinals).”

Anderton added that the team has been working on fundamentals, and that home-field advantage may haveplayed a role in Tuesday’s victory.

“Lots of ground balls and fly balls, communication and double play drills,” Anderton said. “You name it, we’ve been getting after it. So, a lot of the fundamentals, getting back to basics. Our field is tough because it’s dry and it gets some hops. We were able to play at home here. It may have been a little home-field advantage because we’re used to the hops. We put some water on it last night and they put a little on it today before the game, so it softened up a little.

“I think there was a little advantage to us knowing what to expect. We saw they struggled a little bit, a few balls that stayed down that they would’ve come up.”

Loch knocked in three runs, and his triple was one of the team’s two triples in the ballgame. PV starting pitcher Nate Mostosky also tripled for the Bears.

BANGOR ON THE HORIZON ... The Bears will now face Bangor (20-2) Saturday in the next round. “Well, 20-2 is nothing to sneeze at,” Anderton said. “That’s a good record, and they’ve played well. They’ve played a couple of EPC teams very tough. One of their losses was Nazareth, and it was a 4-3 ballgame. They’re right there with some of the top teams. They’re 20-2 for a reason. We’ve got to be prepared, and go after it again in practice this week and make sure we’re focused on fundamentals. We have to get ourselves prepared for their No. 1 guy, and make sure we get on some pitches we can drive and get ready to go offensively and put some pressure on them.”

HITTING STARS ... Besides the two hits by Loch, Ben Mostosky and Mike Konopke both finished with a pair of hits.

Whitehall 012 010 2 - 6 5 3

Pleasant Valley 003 500 x - 8 8 4

Rader and Yankowy. N. Mostosky, B. Mostosky (7) and Walsh. W - N. Mostosky. L - Rader.