After falling to their cross-county rival on Friday night, the Pineville Mountain Lions worked their way back into the win column with a big road win over the Berea Pirates on Saturday in the Bill Smallwood Classic.

With three players scoring in double digits, Pineville rolled to a 78-73 victory over the Pirates.

“This was a big character win for us,” said Pineville coach Brad Levy. “This was the exact response I wanted to see from this team. We are one day removed from an emotional loss at home against a good team. Can we go on the road and win in a hostile environment? Can we put the loss behind us and get better? The answer was yes for this game.”

“I was really proud of our effort on the court and off the court,” he said. “We had guys on the bench that, instead of being upset with not playing, they were encouraging their teammates on the court and contending that we should go with what was working, regardless of if they played or not. I learned a lot about this team’s maturity during this game.”

The Mountain Lions were led by Sean Phipps with 37 points and 11 rebounds. He was 15-of-21 from the field, including 1-of-1 from deep and 6-of-7 from the charity stripe. He was followed by Dalton Mason with 15, Ian Middleton with 10, Clay Goodin with seven, Tristian Hibbard with four, Reed Baker with three and Austin Fuson with two.

With the win, Pineville improved to 3-2 on the season. They were slated to take on Buckhorn in Pineville on Monday.