Pleasant Valley girls basketball head coach Dan Muir enters his second season in charge of the Lady Bears this winter.

PV made a trip to the District11 playoffs during the 2020-2021 season, which ended with a loss to Emmaus. Muir finished his first year 3-8 in a COVID-shortened season.

“Up in the EPC North, it’s very competitive and I think this year there’s some really good players that graduated, so we should be very competitive with those teams,” Muir said. “We’re looking forward to playing up North and a lot of girls know each other, so that’s going to be fun for the kids.”

Muir and the Lady Bears hope to experience a full season together and get more playing time than last year. The Bears only played EPC North schools, which included Pocono Mountain West Pocono Mountain East, Stroudsburg and both East Stroudsburg schools.

“The biggest thing was scoring the basketball,” Muir said about last year. “Our defense was tough and that’s what kept us competitive. (We were) Looking for someone to get some more points, and when you have a short season and then also missing weeks due to COVID, it was hard to get kind of diverse with how we attacked teams. We ran our basic stuff, so that was difficult.

The Lady Bears look to improve on the 3-8 record from last season and tally more wins for Muir’s second season. Another trip to the District 11 playoffs can be in hand again for Pleasant Valley.

“We have seven definite kids that are going to be competing,” Muir said. “We basically brought everyone back from this year. We got one of our very talented players back, she actually plays soccer as well. We have the main group of starters back that started last year. We have a young group of kids that are fighting. They are some solid players.”

Along with facing the best of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Northern division, Pleasant Valley will also be up against the tougher South teams such as Easton, Liberty and Whitehall in the Lehigh Valley.

“We have some good-caliber basketball and that’s going to be a good test for us,” Muir said about the South. “I’m just looking forward to being competitive and I know we can do that because we have the experience coming back. We have some good athletes. I’m looking forward to every game, just being a competitive game and having opportunity to win it and see how these girls do.”

Some of the returners for the Lady Bears this season are seniors Sam Merklin and Drew Morgan, also followed by junior Ella Muir. Sophomore Katelyn Honadel also returns to the Bears squad as part of the experience throughout the team.

“I think we can compete with pretty much everyone,” coach Muir said. “I know down South, Easton’s definitely going to be really good. I want to see how we stack up some against the other teams in the middle of the road down there. Our goal is to be competitive and I think we can compete and win games, a lot of games that teams don’t win we can win, but we have those kind of kids. It’s going to be a build-up for us.”

The Lady Bears begin the 2020-2021 regular season against Bangor Area, then following a pair of games including EPC North rivals East Stroudsburg South and Pocono Mountain East. The full season plans to help Muir get more coaching experience and hopefully results in continued success for the Lady Bears.

“We have certain kids have to step up, but that’s how I see it,” Muir said. “I feel like it’s one of those seasons that it can be a lot of things. I told the kids I don’t care about wins or losses, of course I want to win every game, but if we play the right way and learn to play as a team, all five, then we can beat anybody and we have those kind of kids.”