The Pleasantville 12U baseball team has won the United States Specialty Sports Association Iowa State Tournament, held this past weekend in Des Moines. After advancing out of pool play, the Trojans advanced to the AA gold bracket as the #8 seed.

In the first game of that bracket, Pleasantville knocked off the top-seeded Ankeny Avengers 8-4. That was followed by a 10-2 win over the previously undefeated Hardin County Minutemen. Another win over the Ankeny team brought Pleasantville to the championship game, where they defeated the Des Moines Avengers 16-13 to win the 12U crown. Coach Tom Roff says that he was proud of the way his players ended their youth baseball career.

“With this group, we’ve had a lot of success the last few years, whether it was the Little League level a couple years ago getting fifth, or last year getting fourth at USSSA Class A. To finally have it culminate with a first place finish, our kids are ecstatic. They worked hard, they’ve put a lot of time into it, and were eager to learn more about the sport. So to have it all finish this way was thrilling, and probably equally important to us was the fact that all 12 kids contributed immensely.”

The team finished the season with a record of 8-9-1. This is their final year in youth baseball at Pleasantville, as they will be eligible to play junior high baseball next summer.