Pella jumped out to a 5-0 lead, then hung on to knock of the Pella Christian softball team last night in the Little Hawkeye Conference opener for both teams heard live on www.kniakrls.com.

The Lady Dutch got all five runs off Eagles starter Danielle Vande Voort, but Cheyenne Collins threw 4 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief to keep Pella Christian in the game.

With runs in the third, fourth and sixth innings, the Eagles clawed within two heading to the seventh.  Pella then came up with three terrific defensive plays for coach Teresa Thompson to close out the victory.

“Kinzi (Van Wyk) knows what’s going on in the circle, and that there was a runner at first that she could turn and be confident in her second basemen to start it off.  Getting that out was huge. Then Ellie (Cairney) firing it and going for it (on a strong throw from right field) and getting the rundown out there. The defense worked really hard and they came together, because in some past games we’ve had some inaccurate throws and some errors, so that was a big win for us in that seventh inning.”

On the other hand, Pella Christian coach Karen Harrill knows that her defense let some things slip away as the Eagles committed six errors on the night.

“We need to be ready right away to support Danielle.  I thought Danielle pitched really well even though they were hitting her.  If we could have a couple of those balls back that we mishandled in those early innings, this might have been a different game.  We need to make sure we shore up our defense a little bit more.”

Van Wyk got the win in the circle for Pella, while Vande Voort took the loss for P.C.  Offensively, Maddie Parks, Alizabeth Van Dusseldorp, Sidney Van Vark and Maddy Rempe all had two hits each for Pella, and Sophie Howerzyl had a pair of base knocks for the Eagles.

Pella is 4-2 on the season and hosts Indianola tomorrow night, while Pella Christian is 0-3 and entertains Norwalk tomorrow.