In the heavily anticipated rematch of last year’s District Championship game, Pleasantville defeated the Sabers of Twin Cedars last night in a 2-1 thriller to claim the District 12 title.

A pitching duel for the ages between Josh Luna of Pleasantville and Otis Roby of Twin Cedars was on display, as both went for complete games and both had double digit strikeouts. The offense for both teams was hard to find, with Roby pitching the first five innings scoreless and only giving up two hits. But disaster struck in the bottom of the sixth where a costly overthrow error by Roby on a sacrifice bunt attempt allowed the only two Pleasantville runs to score.

On the other hand, Josh Luna was in line for a perfect game through six innings, before he gave up a leadoff homerun in the seventh to Trace Embray. He then allowed both Otis Roby and Spencer McCarty to get on base via the walk before striking out the next two batters to end the game. Despite coming out on the losing side in last year’s 1-0 loss, Pleasantville Head Coach Sheldon Card had no hesitation in knowing that this would be the game he would start Luna.

“As a senior just to have some of those thoughts and feelings and know how it feels to have a game in your grasp and then not come through with it, So I just expected him to have this night and you just had this feeling that it would be our turn,” Card told KNIA/KRLS Sports.
Despite the loss, Twin Cedars Head Coach Matt Miller said that there was no shame in losing with the way his team played against a talented Pleasantville team after losing eight seniors from last year’s State Championship squad.

“We have nothing to hang our heads about, we fought, we battled with an almost entirely new group this year and I feel like we really represented ourselves and our community really well tonight,” Miller said to KNIA/KRLS Sports after the game.
Pleasantville will move on to play in the Substate 6 final Tuesday against B-G-M at 7 p.m. in Pella.