In first round district play hosted at PCM High School, both the Pella Christian and host Mustangs advance further into district play with dominating wins, the Eagles taking down the Tigers of South Hardin 72-49 and the Mustangs victorious over the Tigerhawks of Colfax-Mingo 59-49.

The Eagles got ahead early on the back of a 20-0 run in the first quarter, and ended the first quarter with a 22-1 lead. The Eagles continued to pour it on, getting 13 first half points from Jake Pringle and led at the halftime break 40-18. Eagles Head Coach Larry Hessing told KNIA/KRLS Sports, that after a couple of blown leads in the regular season, the message at halftime was maintain the intensity. The Eagles picked up on the message, and got the lead as high as 30 at several points before coasting out the last couple of minutes. Pella Christian was led by the 13 points from Pringle, 12 from Jayden Huisman, and 10 from Josh Van Gorp in the victory.

The PCM Mustangs also started off fast in game two of the doubleheader, with Andrew Van Ryswyk getting 17 first half points as PCM hit five triples and contained Colfax-Mingo’s 18 points a game scorer, Jarod Nichols, to just 4 points en route to a 32-15 halftime advantage. PCM went cold in the third quarter however, as the Tigerhawks crawled back into the game outscoring the Mustangs 21-12 and getting the lead down to 5 in the early 4th. A pair of steals from Reed Worth and Elijah Sperfslage led to easy Mustang baskets, and PCM ran out the clock for the victory. Head Coach Fred Lorensen says the fourth quarter defense from his team was outstanding. PCM got 19 points and 10 rebounds out of Van Ryswyk, and 14 points from Worth.

Both the Eagles and Mustangs now advance in district play and will match up with East Marshall and West Marshall respectively in LaGrande on Thursday night.