The Pella baseball team dropped an 8-1 decision to Gilbert on their home field Thursday evening, in a game heard live on KRLS3. The Tigers wasted no time getting the scoring underway, sending two runs across home plate in the top of the first inning. Two more runs in the third gave Gilbert a 4-0 lead, but Pella was able to find a brief answer with a run of their own in the bottom of the frame. The Tigers tacked on another run in the fourth, and were aided by two Pella errors in the sixth to score the final three runs of the game. Pella head coach Jesse Jablonski says that while he saw some positives from his team, it was a night where everything was going Gilbert’s way.

“It was a tough one. Gilbert is a good program. We’ve struggled to beat them the last few years, and they’ve got a lot of kids back this year on their roster, and that experience showed in a lot of different areas tonight. They played good defense, they pitched well, they came up with some key hits when they needed them. I saw a lot of good things from a number of guys from our side as well. Gilbert had a lot of balls they hit off the fists and off the end of the bat, and they found some grass and got hits. It was one of those games where things fell their way a little more than us.”

No Dutch players picked up multiple base hits, but Drew Hillman had a base hit and the only RBI to lead the way. Pella had only five hits as a team. Five Dutch pitchers saw action in the contest, with Keegan Hanson starting for the first time in his sophomore season. He gave up six hits and one walk while striking out six batters. Pella’s opening week of games concludes with a record of 3-2. They’ll be back in action Monday at Norwalk for a doubleheader.