Mark Dudley knew his team could see the finish line Friday night against Pleasant Valley.

But the Pocono Mountain East boys basketball coach hoped his team didn’t fall into a trap before it got there.

Dudley’s Cardinals didn’t stumble. Instead, they closed out a crucial 56-44 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference win over the Bears.

“I learned that we’re tough,” Dudley said. “We haven’t been playing well lately, so we knew this game was going to be a tough one for us; it’s a rivalry game, and PV has been playing pretty well lately. So we knew we were coming into their house, and it’s their Hall of Fame night, and the crowd was a little raucous. So we knew we were going to be in for a fight, and I learned that my team is ready for that.

“This is a good win on the road, a rivalry win in the Mountain Division. I’m proud of my team. I saw their resiliency tonight. We have some improving to do with closing out games, but I’m proud of the way we competed tonight. We came into a tough place to play, and we got the win.”

Pleasant Valley trailed by as much as 14 points midway through the third quarter. The Bears were down 38-26 when they went on an 11-2 run in the fourth quarter to trim the deficit to 40-37 with 4:40 remaining in the period.

Zach Prator, who finished with a team-high 19 points, scored seven during the surge, while Jerael Moore scored four.

“I think the thing with Prator is, now we realize he has a supporting cast,” said Dudley. “He has some other guys that if you really focus on him too much, the other guys will hurt you. The plan was to know where he was at, but not lose track of some of their other guys.

“We knew he was going to get his. But we couldn’t let anybody else beat us. That was kind of the game plan, try to limit him as much as we can, he’s going to get his because he’s a heck of a player. But just play solid defense and try to limit everybody else from beating us.”

Pocono Mountain East responded with a 7-0 run, all from Rayshawn Harris, who scored a game-high 21 points.

“I think that the energy brought by the big night of a rivalry (game), Hall of Fame night and everything, was both our biggest positive and our biggest negative,” said Pleasant Valley head coach Bobby Hahn. “I think when you look at the way that we played, the reason that we played so well and we came back was the energy provided. But then in the same sense, when we had the ball we looked like we were still the Energizer Bunny. We couldn’t flip that switch to just getting calmer and settling it down.

“We were so amped up, so energetic. We started off playing so tough, and then I think what happened was that we just kept that switch of going 110 percent, and we needed to calm it down.”

The Bears led 7-4 in the first quarter before a 7-0 run gave the Cardinals an 11-7 cushion at the end of the period. That momentum carried into the second quarter, as East pushed the lead to 22-11.

Pleasant Valley trimmed the deficit to 24-17 at halftime with a 6-2 run, as Sebastian Sacci, Marcellus Solt and Madden Roselli all got buckets.

A 6-0 run midway through the third quarter pushed the Cardinals’ lead to 34-20 before the Bears started to chip away.

While the rally came up short Friday, Hahn knows the team still has a chance to achieve its goals this season.

“I think they’ve done a good job of building as the year has gone on, getting better, working on things,” said Hahn. “We find something new to work on and we do that and get better. That’s all you can do. We just have to keep working hard. And we’ve done that most of the year. As frustrating as tonight is, there are a lot of positives to take out of it. We have to make sure we take this and learn from it. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We have to finish strong here and hopefully reach that goal (of qualifying for districts) and do something that Pleasant Valley has only done once in the past 11 years.”

WHAT’S LEFT ... The Bears are .500 and currently sit 10th in the District 11 Class 6A standings and have games against Pocono Mountain West, Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg South and Moravian to close out the regular season. The Cardinals are fourth in the 6A standings and have clinched a district berth.

HONORED ... Pleasant Valley held a ceremony for Hall of Fame inductees Aaron Fuhrman, Brad Konwalik, Patrick Kregeloh, Jake Shawn Sarwar and Stephanie E. Wurst (posthumously) during halftime of Friday’s game.

PM EAST

McManus 1-0-0-2, Pierre 5-0-0-10, Bell 0-0-0-0, Varkanis 0-0-0-0, Decaires 2-1-2-5, Bethea 4-4-4-12, Bey 0-0-0-0, Harris 9-2-4-21, Dervisevic 0-0-0-0, Allicock 0-2-2-2, Ynfante 0-0-0-0, Scoz 1-2-3-4. TOTALS: 22-11-17-56.

PLEASANT VALLEY

Haines 1-0-0-3, Loch 1-0-0-3, Roselli 3-0-0-7, Kauffman 0-0-0-0, Solt 0-0-0-0, Moore 3-0-0-6, Green 0-0-0-0, Sacci 2-0-1-4, Breuer 0-0-0-0, Prator 6-6-8-19, Outten 0-2-2-2. TOTALS: 16-8-11-44.

PM East 11 13 12 20 - 56

Pleasant Vy. 7 10 9 18 - 44

Three-pointers: PM East - Harris 1; Pleasant Valley - Prator 1, Haines 1, Loch 1, Roselli 1.

Records: PM East (15-4); Pleasant Valley (9-9).