PELLA — Playing at home tonight, Pella Christian’s Eagles look to get back on the winning track. The Eagle teams lost a road doubleheader in Little Hawkeye Conference play to Pella’s Little Dutch on Tuesday.
Pella Christian hosts Norwalk in conference play tonight.
On Tuesday, the Eagle girls lost 54-49 to Pella then the boys dropped a 70-53 decision.
“We got off to really slow starts for the first and third quarters,” said Kevin Van Maanen, Eagle girls’ head coach, of the game against Pella. The Eagle girls overcame the slow start in the beginning to lead 23-19 by halftime.
Pella Christian and Pella were deadlocked in a 35-35 game after three quarters.The Little Dutch girls edged ahead and never gave up the lead in the final stretch against the Eagles.
Lauren Jungling led the Eagles with 17 points and nine rebounds. Hannah Beltman tossed in 12 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked five shots. Tessa Howerzyl scored 10 points and dished out five assists.
Autumn Vos pulled down 10 of the team’s 39 rebounds. She scored three points as did Marina Shannon for the Eagles. Brooke Mitrisin added four points.
“We struggled in our transition defense,” Van Maanen said. “Our biggest problem was giving up too many offensive rebounds. We did a lot of good things. Offensively, we played a lot better. Lauren had a great game for us. Tessa had a great floor game. Hannah had her best game of the year offensively and defensively. We had a lot of girls that stepped up giving us lots of positives to take away from the game.”
Jessica Holterhaus paced Pella with 20 points. Mackenzie Gustafson added 14 points.
Pella Christian’s boys were up 20-15 at the end of the opening quarter against Pella. Pella pushed to the lead on a 19-7 surge in the second period.
It was four-point game, 47-43, heading into the final eight minutes with the Eagles trailing. The Little Dutch outscored the Eagles 23-10 down the stretch.
Isaac Naaktgeboren fired in five 3-pointers to lead the Little Dutch with 26 points. Jordan Pingel scored 14 and Bryce Bortscheller had 10 points.
Pella Christian got 19 points and six rebounds from Coltin Collins.
Sebastian Baugh scored eight followed by Nate Haveman with seven points. Josh Posthuma had six points and nine rebounds.
Levi Jungling scored five followed by Jared Van Wyk with four, Brand Vermeer with three and David Kacmarynski with one point. Jungling handed out five assists.