Several second half bursts of scoring that came off of defensive plays allowed the Pella girls basketball team to claim a solid win to end the 2022 portion of the season Tuesday, as the Dutch defeated Knoxville 56-39, heard live on 92.1 KRLS and 95.3 KNIA.
Knoxville took a 2-0 lead, but trailed the rest of the contest as Pella would pull ahead several times, and the Panthers would close the gap and even get back to a few ties in the first two quarters. But the Dutch came out of the halftime break firing, building up to a 15 point lead at one point in the 3rd frame. While the home team kept things within arms’ reach, the Pella girls forced five Knoxville turnovers in a row at one point in the 4th quarter to pull away late.
Panthers Head Coach Matt Ritchhart believed his team matched up fine with Pella for the most part, but poor execution during key stretches contributed to the loss.
“We played with them pretty well and competitively, and that’s all I asked of the girls before the game is that they go out and compete,” he says. “We beat them in softball, we beat them in volleyball, there’s no reason why the mindset shouldn’t be that we are going to go out and compete and potentially get that win in basketball as well, and I think our girls, for the most part, from a competition standpoint we gave that to them but obviously the execution wasn’t there.”
Pella’s Blaine Forsythe felt like the defense was the key.
“This was a collective team effort that started on the defensive end. On a night where our shots weren’t falling, I am proud of how our players responded defensively and how we attacked the boards. Our players did a great job communicating the different things we wanted to do defensively and limiting them to one chance. We talk about playing hard for 32 minutes and how that can be a challenge for teams to prepare for both mentally and physically. Throughout the second half we were able to put together a few small runs from the turnovers we were creating and from running the floor. This was a solid end to our 2022 and we look forward to continuing our momentum into the second half of our season.”
Dutch Senior Kylie Tauke says the team found their groove in the final two quarters by creating extra offensive opportunities with their pressure defense.
FULL INTERVIEW WITH TAUKE:
Tauke finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds; Hailey and Kennedy Van Vark each scored 15 points, with the post adding nine boards as well for Pella. Hannah Dunkin finished with 12 points and Emma Dunkin tallied 11 for the Panthers.
Pella improves to 6-2 overall and Knoxville falls to 5-2; both are off for the winter break until the first week in January.