Regular season champion Pella is also tournament champions of the Little Hawkeye Conference.

The Lady Dutch beat Grinnell 2-0, Oskaloosa 2-0 and Dallas Center Grimes 2-1 in pool play before topping Norwalk 2-0 for the championship.

Coach Catie Brand’s club was challenged by D-C-G in their final pool play match, dropping the opening set before rallying to take the last two.

“That’s the first set we’ve had like that all year. Occasionally one person will be off, but the other five are fine. This was almost the whole crew. But I’ll complement our senior Kristin Rundle. She’s one of our defensive specialists. She stayed steady. They all for the most part kept their heads up and they responded in set two and set three.”

Meanwhile, Pella Christian struggled in pool play, losing 2-0 to Indianola, beating Newton 2-1, then losing to Norwalk 2-1. The Eagles then lost 2-0 Oskaloosa to finish in sixth place.

An under-the-weather John Evenhouse said that his team’s downfall was it’s slow start.

“We started out the first match not passing the ball at all. When you have a team that hits the ball – if you don’t pass, you don’t hit. So that made it a real struggle.”

Top-ranked Pella is 34-4 and is off until their regional tournament opener on October 25th, while Pella Christian is 21-10 and will play tomorrow at the Knoxville Invitational.