After months of downtime due to COVID-19, the highly-anticipated high school summer sports season gets underway Monday. The Little and Lady Dutch will be jumping right into Little Hawkeye Conference action, playing host to Grinnell.
The Little Dutch open up the slate with their sights set on moving up the conference leaderboard. Pella finished seventh in the Little Hawkeye last season, but has a solid core of returners from a team that finished 11-23 overall. Pella has lost some key contributors who decided not to go out this summer, but still looks poised to make a splash in the league, and will try to make the best of their early home-field advantage. Head Coach Jesse Jablonski says that it will be unusual to start the season with a heavy schedule, but he believes his team has made the right preparations in the two weeks of preseason practices.
“To jump into a five-game week versus a two or three-game week is going to be a little bit of a challenge at times. With pitchers not having the normal buildup time to get into season shape, we’re going to probably see some limited pitch counts and count on a number of guys to get us through games. There’s been a number of guys who have been throwing pretty regularly who we know are in decent shape. But then on the other hand, we do have some that are probably going to need to be limited a little more, especially early on. So we’ll see where we’re at.”
Grinnell finished just a game above .500 in conference play last season, but brings in one of the deeper, more experienced rosters in the league. Three returning players averaged over .250 last season, and only three of last year’s regular starting nine graduated. The pitching staff is rather thin, but the Tigers will likely go with senior Jake Hull as the opening night starter.
Monday’s baseball game will be broadcast on the KRLS3 stream at KNIAKRLS.com, as well as the KRLS3 mobile app, with Jon Mohwinkle calling the action. Pregame coverage begins at 7:15, with the opening pitch slated for 7:30.
Meanwhile, the Lady Dutch will be in action on the softball diamond against Grinnell. Pella will look to start what will likely be a rebuilding season on a positive note, and continue a winning trend against the Tigers. Pella has won two in a row in the series, as well as eight of the last nine meetings. First pitch of the softball game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., also at Pella High School.