Photo courtesy of Troy L. Hugen Photography

A big third quarter wasn’t enough for the Pella Christian girls basketball team to pull off the upset against #13 North Mahaska in the quarterfinals of the Class 2A Region 6 Tournament Tuesday night, as they fell 66-54 in a game heard live on 92.1 KRLS.

After the Eagles opened the game on an 8-5 run, North Mahaska battled back to take a 19-10 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Warhawks extended the lead to 26-10 three minutes into the second quarter and carried a 37-25 advantage into halftime. Pella Christian would pick things up out of the break, opening the third quarter with a 4-0 burst. The Eagles continued that momentum through the end of the quarter, outscoring North Mahaska 22-8 to grab a 47-45 lead entering the final eight minutes of play. Sadly, the Pella Christian offense ran dry in the fourth quarter, as they connected on just three of their 14 shots and North Mahaska used a 21-7 advantage in the quarter to end the Eagles’ season. 

P.C. had four players reach double figures in the loss, led by Maggie Heinen with 13 points. Rachel and Faith Kacmarynski recorded 12 and 11 points respectively, while Chloe Snyder added 10 points. While it was difficult to see the season come to an end, Eagles head coach Brendan Foughty said that he was proud of how his squad fought through adversity throughout the year.

“First of all, I’m just extremely proud of our program for the grit they’ve showed throughout the season. There’s been a lot of hurdles. There’s been a lot of times where we could have stopped and we could have given up and our girls continued to choose to fight all year long and so today was no different. It was a game of runs and credit to North Mahaska they went on more runs than we did.”

The Pella Christian girls posted an overall record of 10-13 this season, marking their first season with double digit wins since the 2018-2019 season. The Eagles’ girls basketball team graduates two seniors in Karis Fikkert and Amelia Boender.