Des Moines Christian was too much for both Pleasantville basketball Squads on Friday night as the Trojans lost by similar scores. The girls fell 54-29, while the boys had one more point in a 54-30 loss both heard live on kniakrls.com KNIA3. The girls had a nightmare start trailing 11-0 after the first quarter, but closed the gap to 17-11 with 4:00 remaining, but the Lions used a 6-2 run to end the half with a ten point lead. The Trojans had one more run in them and got the lead down to five with about 5:00 remaining in the 3rd quarter but another 8-3 run did them in and DMC built a lead that would eventually balloon to 29. Trojans Coach Jeff Cook told KNIA Sports he was happy with how his girls fought, but Des Moines Christian had an answer.

Cook: “I was proud of them and we did fight back. It was 11-0 and it was 23 at the half and we only gave them 12 in the 2nd quarter and then we got it down to 5 in the 3rd quarter then all of a sudden I look up and it’s 13 again.”

Azell Smith led the Trojans with 15 points on the night. The boys seemingly had everything go wrong for them as they, like the girls, got down in a hole they could never dig out of. The Lions essentially let Pleasantville’s Dayson Learhoff do what he wanted and shut down everyone else and it worked as Learhoff scored 19 points but no one else was in double figures. Coach Taylor Phipps said Des Moines Christian’s defense was relentless, and he liked the way his team handled the pressure.

Phipps: “I thought we handled it well in stretch and got some open looks but couldn’t knock them down, and if we could get some of those to fall, you fell a little different, but credit their intensity.”

The girls’ record is now 6-10 and 2-9 in the West Central Conference, while the boys fall to 8-7 and 6-6 in the conference. The girls travel to West Central Valley on Tuesday, while the boys are in action next Friday at Woodward-Granger.