Published 4:32 a.m. CT Jan. 11, 2020
There will be no regular-season rematch between two of the state's top ranked boys' basketball teams.
Pleasant Plains and Our Savior's Springfield have called off their nonconference game orginally scheduled for January 20. The programs agreed that if they met at the Metamora Holiday Tournament, they would cancel their nonconference game. They then met in the Dec. 29. MHT title game won by then-fifth-ranked Our Savior's over No.1 Pleasant Plains 60-28. The Cardinals, now No.3 went ice cold in the second half and scored 5 points in the seconf half of the loss to current No.2 Our Savior's (20-0).
"We kind of had an unwritten agreement," Pleasant Plains athletic director Brent Grisham said, "when we saw that they were returning to Metamora, that if we did happen to meet them in that tournament, that we would talk about canceling the second game."
The release of the postseason assignments revealed that Pleasant Plains and Our Savior's were playing in the same sub-sectional and would be favored to meet in the postseason. "I think that kind of contributed to it as well," Grisham said.
Pleasant Plains loves being a participant in the Metamora Holiday Tournament, according to Grisham, but the Cardinals often play the same teams during the regular season. Last season, Dunlap and Peoria Notre Dame were overlapping Pleasant Plains foes both during the regular season, then again at Metamora.
"(Our Savior's AD) Phillip (Heppe) and I and our coaches agreed," Grisham said, "that if we were going to put it on the court in December, we didn't need to do it a couple weeks later."