The Class 3A regional basketball tournament brackets came out early Monday afternoon for the boys’ teams, and the Pella High Little Dutch will have quite the journey ahead of them if they want to make it to the state tournament in Des Moines. Pella is lumped into District 11 in Substate 6, which includes Grinnell, South Tama and Bondurant-Ferrar. Grinnell was the higher seed so they’ll face South Tama, and Pella will have to travel to Bondurant to face the Blue Jays. Despite having similar evaluation period records, Little Dutch head coach, Mark Core explains why the first round shaped up the way it did with his team having to travel.
“The games five through 15 are utilized to determine a win-loss record,” Core explained. “During that stretch of games, both Bondurant and us were 6 – 5. Then, it goes to some tiebreakers; they actually got some bonus points in the tiebreaker because they played and lost to a 4A school.”
Core went on to say that with that bonus point, it put the two schools into a tie, and this year, they break the tie alphabetically, and “B” comes before “P” in the dictionary. The winner out of Pella’s district will play the winner out of District 12, which includes Centerville, Knoxville, Chariton, and Oskaloosa. The first round match between the Little Dutch and Blue Jays will take place a week from Monday on February 18 at 7:00 p.m.