Pella welcomed Dallas Center-Grimes to the Tulip City last night for both baseball and softball, and the Mustangs and Fillies each hit the road with a split.

In baseball, the Little Dutch used a six run fifth inning to win the opener 7-5, then fell in the nightcap 11-7 in eight innings.

Pella led game two 3-2 in the top of the fifth inning, and ace pitcher Tyler Hillman had struck out nine. But he passed the 90-pitch mark, an important threshold under Iowa’s new pitch count rules.

Coach Jesse Jablonski chose to take Hillman out of the game, making him eligible for Friday’s doubleheader against Pella Christian, but a young bullpen then allowed nine runs to score over the next three-plus innings, with seven combined walks and three hit batters.

“This was the exact situation that we talked about before the season”, Jablonski said. “You’ve got a close game on a Monday and you have to decide whether you ride your number one or pull him and save him for Friday. It is what it is now and everybody’s in the same situation. That just means that the bats need to come out early and give a bigger effort early in the game so that they can give us a cushion and we don’t have to worry so much about it.”

On the night, Avery Van Zee had four hits for Pella, Hillman had three hits, three runs and four RBI, and Joel Ruiter had three hits, three runs and three RBI.

The Little Dutch are 6-8 overall and 3-6 in the Little Hawkeye Conference. They have today off, and will play tomorrow night at Grinnell.

In softball, DC-G beat Pella 8-3 in game one, but the Lady Dutch rebounded for a 6-0 victory in game two behind Kinzi Van Wyk’s complete game shutout. She allowed just one hit and two walks while striking out four.

Mackenzie Meyer had two hits in the win, including a double, and Courtney Thompson drove in a pair. Destiny Brown collected two hits in the opener.

The Lady Dutch are 4-15, and the win was their first in the LHC as they’re now 1-8. Up next is match up against Knoxville tonight at the Pella Softball Complex.