While any high school team deals with injuries and illness as part of their season, it feels like those issues have been magnified at times for the Pella Christian girls basketball squad — especially with the quality of teams they’ve played to open the season.

At 2-6 over the winter break, the Eagles have competed against what Varsity Bound considers the 3rd toughest schedule and BCMoore calculates as the 6th hardest among Class 2A teams with a group that has had only five varsity regulars available in all eight games and just one player — Joslyn Terpstra, start all eight of their contests.

Head Coach Brad Engbers doesn’t want to make excuses and knows that playing time has been valuable for the younger players getting their first taste of the Little Hawkeye Conference and their elite 4A teams, but at the same time, knows they can be more competitive coming out of the current winter break if they can stay consistently healthy.

Pella Christian will open the 2022 portion of their season at home vs. No. 6 in 4A Dallas Center-Grimes on Tuesday.