Photo Courtesy of Troy L. Hugen Photography

The Pella Christian girls basketball team struggled at Grinnell Friday night in a 59-36 loss, while a big second and fourth quarter led the Eagles’ boys to a 59-44 victory in a Little Hawkeye Conference doubleheader heard live on 92.1 KRLS.

The Eagles’ girls took control of the game early on with a 6-2 run in the opening minute and a half, before Grinnell responded with a 13-0 run to end the quarter. Pella Christian narrowly outscored the Tigers 8-7 in the second quarter and cut the lead to six early in the third, but Grinnell found their rhythm in the second half to score 37 points and pull away from Pella Christian. Faith Kacmarynski was the lone double figure scorer for the Eagles in the contest with 16 points.

The Pella Christian boys struggled offensively in the first quarter, connecting on just three of their nine shots in period as Grinnell claimed a slim 13-12 lead. The Eagles got things rolling in the second quarter with a 25-point outburst to take a 37-23 lead into halftime. The offense again struggled for Pella Christian to open the second half, scoring just four points in the third quarter, but regained the momentum in the final period to outscore Grinnell 18-10 to grab the win. Tysen De Vries was the Eagles’ top scorer with 17 points and Dane Geetings contribute 12 points and multiple game-altering plays according to head coach J.D. Boer.

“Dane, he’s struggled with his shot a little bit this year at times, but you know, we just keep talking about being confidence, you know, and man he really bailed us out there in the third quarter. It was about four minutes into the third quarter, and I looked at my assistants and said man we’re going to have to score at some point if we want to win this game. We just couldn’t score, and Dane got it going from the arc, he got a couple big offensive rebounds, and I thought that was key for us to be able to pull away at the end.” 

The Pella Christian boys improved to 3-2 overall and 2-1 in conference play, while the girls fell to 1-6 overall and 0-3 in the league. Both the Eagles’ basketball teams play on the road Monday in their final game of the semester as the girls travel to North Mahaska and the boys travel to Wilton.