Pella Christian and Pleasantville and their girls basketball teams clashed with their seasons on the line in the Class 2A Regional quarterfinals, and for the second year in a row, it was the Eagles emerging victorious in a 36-29 victory heard live on 92.1 KRLS.

Pleasantville got the early jump on the Eagles, running out to an 8-0 lead, only for Emri Agre to hit a pair of back-to-back shots from beyond-the-arc to get Pella Christian rolling.

Physical play was the name of the game for the duration, as the Trojans plugged up the paint on the Eagles, blocking eight shots beneath the rim and keeping Allison Van Gorp off the scoreboard for the majority of the contest. Key threes from Pella Christian in the second half by Agre and Chloe Morgan kept the Eagles at arms’ length from Pleasantville, as they maintained a two possession lead for most of the second half.

Eagles Head Coach Brad Engbers says while the process of getting the win wasn’t pretty again, he’s proud of how the team was able to rally while missing another key player in a tough environment on the road.

“Survival was the right term for this one, we were down a few players tonight and that made it a little bit difficult and a couple of kids with a fever that missed practice yesterday, so we were glad to get out of this one with a win,” he says.

Pleasantville Head Coach Jeff Cook says while the Trojans did everything they needed to defensively to win the game, they could not find enough offense outside of the paint to finish with a victory.

“Defensively we did what we wanted to,” he says. “We thought if we could hold [Chloe] Morgan and [Allison] Van Gorp to under 30 points, that we’d have a chance, but we weren’t counting on [Emri] Agre to come out and hit four threes.”

Malorie McKinney dominated for the Trojans, scoring 17 points and blocking six shots. Morgan finished with 16 points for P.C. and Agre scored 12 on four three-pointers.

Pella Christian improves to 5-18 and travels to East Marshall High School Friday to take on No. 3 ranked North Linn, while the Trojans finish their season at 8-14.