While many other teams have found a real-life opponent for tonight’s preseason football scrimmages around the area, Pella High will be looking across the field at itself in their annual Gatorade intra-squad scrimmage.

Little Dutch Coach Jay McKinstrey feels like that format gives his staff the best opportunity to evaluate their players in a game setting.

“We want to make sure we put our kids in a good position. We don’t want to scrimmage just anybody because you never know what another team would bring to a Friday night situation. You don’t know what’s on their mind, the fact that they’re playing Pella, we just want to be very careful about that.”

With only five of the 22 starting spots on offense and defense returning this year, McKinstrey says that tonight’s scrimmage is a chance for some new faces to make an impression.

He remembers a scrimmage from a few years ago when then-sophomore Austin Schulte burst onto the scene, and he’s hopeful there will be some breakout stars tonight.

The scrimmage starts at 7:00 and fans are encouraged to bring one or more 20-ounce Gatorade to donate to the team.