With only two seniors lost to graduation, the future is bright for an up-and-coming Pella Christian girls basketball team.

While second-leading scorer Brooke Mitrisin and Cailey Terpstra will be missed, the Eagles have five of their seven rotation regulars back.

That core group helped the Eagles improve from 8-15 last year to 14-9 this season, and the arrow is definitely pointing up.

While Coach Kevin Van Maanen knows that many of his players are multi-sport athletes, and he encourages it, he also has a couple of things he wants that girls working on this offseason.

“Find time yet to do some shooting and ball handling. Those are the two main keys that they just have to do, and they can always do that on their own. We’ll also get together this summer with open gym where we can work on some other things. But those are the two main things I tell them a lot that they can do on their own.”

Kaley Wilson, Mary Kate Bandstra and Isabella Baugh will be returning starters next year for the Eagles, while Emma Huisman and Morgan Fopma also saw significant minutes this season and are back for next year.

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