The Pella Christian boys basketball team has several things to deal with this year that quite frankly they haven’t had to worry about the past few seasons. The Eagles graduated all 5 starters from last years Class 2A State runner up team including their top two scorers from the last two seasons Cliff Warner and Eli Groenendyk. Coach Larry Hessing says they’re also down a bit on numbers this year. He says they started practices with 11 varsity players, then 10 and now due to an injury they are down to 9. Hessing says they’ve had to borrow players from the sophomore squad just to practice game type situations. He says all that aside, they have been working really hard in practice and the expectations are still high after the success they’ve enjoyed the past three to four seasons. Despite the key losses to graduation he says they do return experienced players like Kyle Nikkel, Jon Holwerda, and Jamie and Joe Blom that understand the system and will be good leaders. The Eagles open their season Tuesday at South Tama.