All season long, Frankie Pujols has watched his team battle back from adversity and respond in positive manner.

The Rough Riders’ latest example was their recent victory over Williams Valley in an opening-round Class 3A district playoff game after they lost to Northwestern in the Colonial League final.

From there, the fourth-seeded Roughies (16-10) went on to meet top-seeded Mahanoy Area in a semifinal Wednesday at Pottsville’s Martz Hall, which comes after Press deadlines.

They have won five of their last six games.

“Our loss to Northwestern in the championship game hurt us a lot, but we couldn’t sit and dwell over that because we knew that we still had more important games coming up,” offered Pujols, who has been the team’s leading scorer all season. “Against Williams Valley, we knew that we should handle them with ease and that it shouldn’t be close at all. Unfortunately, we started off slow and they kept up with us, but further into the game we controlled the game and took care of business and won the game and now we’re onto the next game.”

Mahanoy (20-3), the defending Schuylkill League champions, was upset by Pottsville in the league semifinals. They earlier had a 17-game winning streak, but they have won only three of their last six games.

The Golden Bears are led by the backcourt tandem of guards Jace Yedensa (18 points per game), and Tanner Zawada (16 ppg).

Catty head coach Eric Snyder sees Mahanoy with a similar makeup as a familiar opponent. The Roughies will be seeking their first, second-round victory since they defeated Pine Grove in the 2016-17 season.

“Mahanoy reminds us a little of Notre Dame,” said Snyder. “They are very aggressive and physical on defense, they over play on the wings, they play the passing lanes and will double team the ball now and then.

“They push the ball up the court and look to penetrate and kick out for threes. They run cutters through the lane, and love to shoot deep threes on step backs.

“We saw Williams Valley on tape against Marian Catholic and Weatherly. We were confident we could beat them. We were up 20 with about two minutes left in the third quarter, but they cut the lead to 9 but then we got it back up to 20 again.”

Pujols likes his team’s current bond among themselves.

“This team is at the best it could be right now. After winning a couple big games in the league playoffs, I think our team chemistry and our team play got two-times better than what it was in the beginning of the season.”

The junior also knows the team’s position and their perceived role.

“We all also realized it’s win or go home and that’s all it is to it,” stressed Pujols. “We know what we have to do and for our seniors we don’t want the season to be over yet with them and we want to keep playing, not just for them, but for our team and for our coaches because we work hard every day, and we want to prove everyone wrong knowing we’re still the underdogs.

“Mahanoy is a pretty good team as I’ve been hearing around and what people have been talking about. They went undefeated last year if I’m not mistaken and they’re probably most peoples’ pick on winning districts but that doesn’t faze us at all. We’re going into every game with a killer mindset and want to take care of business every single game to get the district championship and advanced to states.”