Pleasantville senior wrestler Blake Rowson punched his ticket to the state wrestling tournament on Saturday as the girls basketball team dominated Cardinal in their regional opener.

Rowson placed first at 144 pounds at Pleasantville’s Class 1A district meet hosted by Sigourney. Rowson won his quarterfinal and semifinal match by pinfall and defeated Kaden Lange of Jesup by a 4-0 decision in the championship match. Paul Gasparovich was the other podium finisher for Pleasantville at 175 pounds as he finished fourth to fall short of a trip to state. As a team at the district meet, the Trojans placed ninth with 45-5 team points. Complete results can be found here. Rowson surpassed many milestones for the Trojans this season including being the school’s all-time wins leader and he will now compete at the state meet for the first time. The Iowa High School Boys State Wrestling Tournament will start on Wednesday at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines.

The Trojan girls basketball team hosted Cardinal in their opening round of Class 2A Region 6 play and won in dominating fashion. Pleasantville controlled the game from start to finish as they led 39-16 at the half and closed out the game with a 66-30 win as they outscored the Comets in every frame. Pleasantville was led in scoring by Liv Klootwyk who had 16 points and Kylie Jolly who had 15. The Trojans will now travel to Mount Ayr on Tuesday to take on a 20-1 Raiders squad. Klootwyk tells KNIA/KRLS that they are playing good basketball right and she believes they can compete with anyone including Mount Ayr. 

“I just approach it as just another game and you just have to go out there and know you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to have missed shots, and make turnovers but you just have to get past those and look to your teammates to show you have more steps coming up. We can win this game.”

Tuesday’s game will start at 7:00 pm.