HELLERTOWN - Pleasant Valley's Steven Hale and Najja Francis closed the regular season playing some of their best tennis of the season.

Unfortunately for the Bears' double team, they weren't able to carry that momentum into the postseason.Hale and Francis were swept 6-3, 6-3 by Liberty's Jesse Claudio and Duke Jagota in the opening round of the District 11 Class AAA Tennis Tournament on Monday."It's been a couple weeks since we finished the regular season, and with the rain last week, we really didn't get a chance to practice at all," said Pleasant Valley coach Mark Allison. "I think that affected us."We weren't as sharp as a team as I would have liked and Steven and Najja weren't as sharp individually as they had been late in the season."The Bears fell behind 4-1 in the opening set. They were able to battle back and win the next two games, but Liberty regrouped and closed out the set."We struggled from the service line, especially in the first set," said Allison. "We had too many double faults and that helped Liberty get several service breaks against us."Pleasant Valley bounced back in the second set and took the early lead. But Liberty rallied to close out the straight set win."We were up 2-1 in the second set and had a deuce game that could have given us a nice cushion," said Allison. "But they won the point to tie the score 2-2 and then pulled away."I thought that was the key moment in the match. We win that and we have a chance to make it interesting."The doubles loss brings a close to the Pleasant Valley tennis season."It wasn't the best way to close out the season because I think if we played like we were capable we could have won this match," said Allison. "But overall, Steven and Najja both had really nice seasons."They were the only two players on our team that had any varsity experience and they did a nice job of leading us and setting a great example for all the new players on the team."YOUNG BEARS … Pleasant Valley will return eight of its top nine players next season. The Bears (7-11) showed plenty of promise down the stretch, as they closed the season by winning five of their last seven league matches.STEPPING UP … Hale, a senior, and Francis, a sophomore, both made big lineup jumps this season. Hale played No. 3 singles, while Francis was on the No. 4 doubles team a year ago. This year, they occupied the top two singles positions.