Pleasant Valley head coach Bob Hahn took over the Bears basketball team in 2018.

Since then, Hahn’s teams have steadily improved each year until the COVID-shortened season for last year’s team threw a wrench in the plans.

“So far, it’s been a lot of fun getting these kids together here and trying to build this program up,” Hahn said. “I’ve had a lot of great kids over the years here. We had a lot of complications with COVID last year that is difficult for every team and not fun for anybody. We battled through it as best as we could and the kids just keep working. We’re working toward hitting our alternate goal is getting back to becoming a playoff team.”

COVID has already affected the team and Pleasant Valley begins the season without a key component of the offense.

“I look at our team and with COVID, that’s always a mystery,” Hahn said. “Our guy that was one of our leading scorers from last year, he is quarantined right now and he’s probably going to be missing our first two games. That’s something right there that’s very difficult to try to adapt and change to in getting the team ready without such a big contributor. It’s the next man up and we just have to realize we have to play through it.”

The Bears open up the season at home against Wilson Area, then travel on the road to Blue Mountain and East Stroudsburg South for the first three games of this season.

Hahn’s three seasons at PV has resulted in 10 wins and after a 6-12 record in the Eastern Pennsylvania conference in 2019-2020, the Bears only went 2-10 in a shortened 2020-2021 season. PV has yet to win the EPC North division since joining the league and haven’t made EPC playoffs either.

“Looking at our practices and everything, it’s going to be tough, just being in the league that we are in always go through that, every game is going to be a tough one,” Hahn said. Assuming that we’re fully healthy and don’t have shutdowns with COVID, our main goals are we want to make districts and be able to maintain a .500 record or above.

“That’s our main goal. We like to set a very realistic goal to have and I think we’re fully capable of doing that. We do have a lot of guys that do not have a lot of varsity experience on this team.”

A winning record is an attainable goal for the Bears and making districts can be a possibility. PV is going to be in a tough EPC North division with the likes of Pocono Mountain East and West, East Stroudsburg North and South and Stroudsburg.

Hahn believes the competition is going to be really tough for the 2021-22 season.

“Every game is going to be a close one for us,” Hahn said. “It’s going to be a lot of close games and we’re going to have to win close games. I hope that experience as we go will take over and help out. We’ve been working on it a lot at practice, but our main goal overall I would say is making districts, becoming a team that has a winning record and get back to the playoffs.”

Key returners for the Bears include seniors Donald Francois and Sam Knudsen and junior Jarod Moore. Joel Contreras graduated last year and was a key scorer for Pleasant Valley.

Moore is coming off the fall football season and now turns his attention to the upcoming basketball season.

“We really look around the EPC and our division alone and there’s no easy games and that’s a good thing,” Hahn added. “It shouldn’t be, I mean nobody wants to go into a game and just know someone’s going to destroy another team and it’s going to be unbalanced. We like to go into every game thinking this is going to be a good one. We got to play our best to compete here. I think that’s what makes the league so great every year is having the competition within in.”

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference includes both the North and South divisions and is expected to be extremely competitive for another year. Hahn talked about his team’s division and see how some of the other teams stack up against his Bears.

“The EPC is going to be tough as always,” Hahn said. “You have your teams that are good every year that just reload. You have our own division and we’re playing Pocono Mountain West, who currently has the No. 2 recruit in the state of Pennsylvania for Division I. He’s almost 6-9, 6-10ish guy who is a phenomenal basketball player and they have a lot of talent around him as well.

“It’s not like you can key in on him, they got a lot of other guys who have a lot of talent. East Stroudsburg South is a very good program, very well-coached and a lot of tough kids. Pocono Mountain East is a lot of good kids as well. I think that they are a team that might surprise a lot this year and have a lot more wins. Stroudsburg I heard has a new kid who moved in who’s seven-feet tall on their team. If there’s a seven-footer who moved into Stroudsburg now, then that takes their team to a whole different level.”