For the third time this season, the Pella High boys basketball team knocked off Grinnell last night, this time with a trip to the state tournament on the line. The Little Dutch gutted out a 63-52 victory in a game heard live on 92.1 KRLS.
The Tigers stunned Pella by jumping out to a 10-0 lead, and the Little Dutch didn’t score their first bucket until more than half of the first quarter was gone. Senior guard Grant Nelson says that there was no panic despite the early deficit.
“I never get worried when I’m down there. I know that with the team that we have, the guys that we have and the mindset we have, it’s just a matter of time before we get going. We could be down double digits, but I’m never worried because I know we’re going to get clicking at some point.”
The Little Dutch responded with a run of their own, scoring the next 11 points to take the lead. It was a see-saw game from that point until the middle of the fourth quarter, when Pella started to pull away at the free throw line. They made 12 in a row at one point, and 15-of-16 overall in the fourth quarter to ice the victory. Head Coach Derek Schulte says that his guys really gutted one out against a tough opponent.
“There’s lots of things that we could have done better, but at the end of the day what we talked about this week heading into it is, we have to have the toughness, the grit and the determination to win even when we’re not at our best. We talk about do we want to be good, great or elite, and we want to play at that elite status. Tonight we didn’t play elite, but we were good enough to grind out a win just playing good.”
Nelson led Pella with 21 points and Karl Miller added 17. The second-ranked Little Dutch improve to 22-2 on the season and are one of eight teams headed to the class 3A boys state tournament. Number one Ballard, third-ranked Western Dubuque, number four Dallas Center-Grimes, sixth-ranked Sergeant Bluff-Luton and tenth-ranked Western Dubuque also won substate games last night. The pairings for next Tuesday’s quarterfinals will be announced later tonight after the final two qualifiers are determined.
AUDIO HIGHLIGHTS:
Final Substate 6@PellaBasketball 63
Grinnell 52#iahsbkb@PellaActivities is back to state for the 18th time in school history and back-to-back seasons. pic.twitter.com/EPaK6dktv5— Andrew Schneider, Jr (@xzono) March 2, 2021
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