With its non-league tilt approaching, caoches Norb Lienhard (Jim Thorpe) and Mark Allison (Pleasant Valley) knew not to make any assumptions about their opponents.

The Lady Bears were only 2-8, but Lienhard didn't want to take his opponent lightly.Allison, meanwhile, wasn't expecting an easy victory.As the match panned out, the Lady Bears proved to be slightly more battle-tested, and gained a 5-0 win."I feel good about the win today," Allison said. "I try to follow everybody in the area, and we saw Jim Thorpe has been playing really well. They have a very good record, they're well-coached, so I certainly had concerns going into the match."Those concerns can now rest, as four of the five matches were won by straight-set decisions.Led by No. 1 singles player Masani Francis, the Bears (3-8) managed to nab wins in all five bouts."She actually got into a bit of a funk about three or four matches ago," Allison said."She lost some close ones and wasn't moving well and actually wasn't playing her game. But the past three matches, she has been moving well, using her athleticism and getting the ball back well."Consistency reigned supreme at No. 1 singles, while in the second singles match, junior Haley White utilized her strong ground strokes from the baseline to propel herself into the winner's circle."I felt in good control of the match, so I tried not to get too frustrated over some points and just stay focused on my game," said White, who defeated Marni Quevedo 6-4, 6-1. "I just tried to let the errors go, keep moving forward and just get the ball back in play."Meanwhile, Francis faced Olympian senior Brittney Marzen, and used a methodical approach to gain a 6-0, 6-1 victory."I thought her serves were really good, so I had to back up a little bit and anticipate it better," Francis said. "I just tried to get it back, move the ball side-to-side and keep her moving, and it worked."The closest match of the day was during No. 3 singles. PV senior Kylie Steever and Olympian senior Caitlin Holt split the first two sets, before Steever prevailed in a third-set tiebreaker for the win (7-4).Allison has been most pleased with the play of his doubles teams, which closed the deal for the Lady Bears with straight-set wins."I'm so happy with the improvement of our doubles teams up to this point," Allison said. "They're moving in the right direction and have been coming through for us lately."The Lady Bears now move into the second half of their Eastern Pennsylvania Conference schedule after the victory. Their opponents were the Allentown-based schools in the first half, and now they will face the Pocono-based schools.Not only are the Bears familiar with their upcoming opponents, but are more apt to compete with them."We haven't played any Pocono schools yet, so now we go back into the league and face off with them," he said.For the Olympians, coach Lienhard is focusing on the positives."This is the best we've played against Pleasant Valley, maybe ever, so I'm happy with that fact," Lienhard said. "Overall today, I think our singles girls played nice, and even though I'm a little disappointed in the doubles, overall I thought we did get a lot of balls back."Hopefully, we can keep playing at a high level and beat the teams coming up on our schedule that we know we can beat."TRIPLE BAGEL ... Despite the three 6-0 sets won by the Bears, each of them were tightly-contested and hard-earned by the winners.OLYMPIAN STREAK ... After starting the season 4-0, the Olympians have gone 2-3 across their last five matches.Pleasant Valley 5, Jim Thorpe 0SINGLESMasani Francis (PV) def. Brittney Marzen 6-0, 6-1; Haley White (PV) def. Marni Quevedo 6-4, 6-1; Kylie Steever def. Caitlin Holt 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4).DOUBLESNicole Moore/Kamryn Scrivens (PV) def. Angelica Uzar/Leanne VanEssendelft 6-0, 6-3; Kalleigh West/Arielle Holding (PV) def. Ellana Adames/Kaitlyn O'Neil 6-1, 6-0.