Getting off to a 1 – 4 start to this season, the Pella High girls’ basketball team seemed to really dig deep in their contest against a ranked Dallas Center-Grimes team in mid-December. The Lady Dutch played the Fillies close, but only fell by four 56 – 52. That close loss could arguably be what has sparked the Lady Dutch to step it up a notch when they have faced ranked teams. Coach Jerod Garland likens his team to an automobile, and that it’s more about the size of the fight in the dog, rather than the size of the dog in the fight.
“You know we’re not really a Corvette, we’re a pick-up truck that sometimes doesn’t look so good,” Garland said. “We’ve got a lot of fight to us. I think that’s the biggest thing we have going for us; there will be some runs Friday night, we may face a deficit early, but we’re going to keep fighting and hopefully make enough plays down the stretch.”
All of the ranked teams on Pella’s schedule will do them a lot of good in a couple of weeks when they begin regional tournament play. The Lady Dutch are in a very tough region, having to face Norwalk in the first round, with the winner playing Winterset, with Dallas Center-Grimes looming on the other side of the bracket. Grinnell, though, is next on the schedule for the Pella girls this Friday in the final game of a four-game road trip.