Pocono Mountain East’s boys basketball team came out of Thursday’s game against Dieruff wanting more.

The Cardinals didn’t have to wait long to get it.

A monster night from Taemas Jones and a gutsy effort on both sides of the ball helped Pocono Mountain East secure a 78-65 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference victory on Friday night.

It was the type of performance Cardinals’ head coach Mark Dudley was looking for one night 72-51 loss to the Huskies.

“I’m proud of my team, because we were resilient,” said Dudley. “We’ve had games this year where teams came back on us and we would just kind of put our heads down. But we didn’t do that today. The team wanted it.

“Our goal tonight was really to just kind of attack them. We lost last night to Dieruff, a team we felt like we should have beat at home. The good thing about it is we had another game today to come out and do better, and I’m glad we were able to pull it out.”

Pocono Mountain East (8-9) hit the ground running, building a 34-17 lead in the first quarter as Jones delivered 17 of his game-high 39 points.

That advantage swelled to 42-20 after a three-pointer from Amar Dervisevic with 4:45 to play in the second quarter.

Pleasant Valley (6-12) chipped away at the deficit closing the period on a 14-2 run to trim Pocono Mountain East’s lead to 44-34 heading into halftime.

“They did a great job closing the second quarter in order to make the halftime speech a lot better,” said Bears’ coach Bobby Hahn. “We told them we’re not out of the game and that anything can happen, You watch a lot of games and you see the weirdest things happen all the time.

“We told them we didn’t need to get it all back in the first two minutes, just little by little by little. The thing is, we did almost get it all back in a couple minutes. And I think even though we got closer, we just expended so much energy in that time. We needed to find a way to settle back in once we got close, but we were still in the go, go, go mode, and the whole pace of the game then was changed.”

Pleasant Valley carried the momentum into the opening minute of the third quarter, as Sean Hallenbeck buried a three-pointer off a turnover to cut the deficit to single digits.

Joseph Greene, who finished with 21 points, drained two free throws and hit one of his four threes, and Dakoda Lucas (11 points) connected for a trey to bring the Bears within two at 47-45 around three minutes into the third period.

Lucas hit another three to make it 50-48 with 3:22 to play in the third, and Greene converted a three-point play with a basket and foul shot to make it 54-51 with 1:53 remaining.

But Pocono Mountain East responded, closing the third on a 10-0 run to take back the momentum with a 64-51 lead, and led by double digits the rest of the way.

Jones buried his sixth and final three-pointer early in the third quarter, where he tallied nine points, including a spin move in the lane and another basket off a turnover.

“He’s an exceptional player,” said Hahn. “I’ve been watching high school basketball basically my entire life. There are certain things you see guys do, and he just has it. Not only can he score, but he makes everyone on his team better, which makes it so hard to defend him, because if you double him, he will find the open man, and they were knocking down the shots. If you stay on him, he’s going to take it one-on-one. We tried putting a guard on him to use quickness; we put a bigger guy on him to use the height; we tried doubling; we tried a 3-2; we tried a 1-3-1. And he found a way to beat it all. He’s just an exceptional player.”

SOLID STATS

... The Cardinals got contributions from throughout the lineup, with Parker Scoz and Stephon Bethea each scoring 13 points while Aiden Pierre added 10.

BEARS DEN

... Zach Prator added 16 points for PV, with 10 coming in the final quarter.

PM EAST

Pierre 5-0-0-10, Goodridge 0-0-0-0, Bethea 5-2-2-13, Jones 16-1-2-39, Burke 0-0-0-0, Dervisevic 1-0-0-3, Scoz 6-1-3-13. TOTALS: 33-4-7-78.

PLEASANT VALLEY

Byers-Robinson 1-0-0-2, Greene 7-3-3-21, Weidman 0-0-0-0, Hallenbeck 1-0-0-3, Moore 1-0-0-2, Lucas 4-0-0-11, Haines 1-0-0-2, Loch 0-0-0-0, Young 0-0-0-0, Prator 8-0-0-16, Sacci 0-1-2-1, Pandolfo 3-0-0-7. TOTALS: 26-4-5-65.

PM East 34 10 20 14 - 78

Pleasant Vy, 17 17 17 14 - 65

Three-pointers: PM East - Jones 6, Bethea 1, Dervisevic 1; Pleasant Valley - Greene 4, Lucas 3, Hallenbeck 1, Pandolfo 1.