Photo Courtesy of Troy L. Hugen Photography

From the season-opening loss to Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont, the Pella Christian boys basketball team has placed an emphasis on being more physical.

In their two losses this season, the Eagles have struggled on the interior defensively and lost the rebounding battle in both contests. Meanwhile, two of Pella Christian’s four wins were aided by a plus-20 advantage in rebounds. While the Eagles have shown the ability to play physical, head coach J.D. Boer says his team still has room to improve in that area of the game.

“I think we’ve just got to continue to learn how to play physical but play smart. You know, playing physical doesn’t mean putting your hands on a guy. A lot of times playing physical is playing without your hands. Play with your chest, move your feet, get around them. So, we gotta clean that up because you know, foul trouble is not a huge deal for us because I feel like we can play a decent amount of guys would be fine, but the problem is when they get in the bonus, and they start putting points on the board. We gotta make them earn those.”

Pella Christian hopes that the practice time during the holiday break will help them make those improvements before they return to the court on January 3rd, 2023, in a girls-boys Little Hawkeye Conference doubleheader at Newton.