The Pella Christian and PCM football teams are set to renew the Highway 163 rivalry in Monroe tonight.

The Eagles enter the game off a disappointing 56-0 loss against Des Moines Christian last week, while the Mustangs rolled to a 54-14 victory over Sigourney-Keota in week one. Pella Christian took a 9-7 advantage over PCM last season in the all-time series between the two teams, winning a double overtime thriller 29-28 in Pella. Mustangs head coach Greg Bonnett says that the team has been working to improve their focus to ensure a better outcome for this year’s game.

“Well, I think the most important thing is just to make sure that you’re going out there and our guys are going out there and just playing it one snap at a time, not trying to make it any bigger than that. Really, that’s what it all kind of comes down to me, is just narrowing the focus and being ready to mentally and physically execute every single play. We’ve been talking and we always talk a lot about that but it’s been ramped up a little bit this week just because of some of the mistakes we did make last year in that game.”

Eagles head coach Rich Kacmarynski said that while they are aware that PCM is looking to avenge last season’s loss, their focus this week has been internal.

“Honestly that has not been a focus for us. Our focus has been on ourselves. We made too many mistakes last Friday night. So our focus has been let’s take care of ourselves, focus on things we can control, and getting better which we did this week. So, we cannot control PCM, they have a very fine team and we know. They’ve always been that way and they got a lot of guys back from last year’s team, so we know we’re in for some stiff competition. But our goal is to go out and do what we do best and that’s the key.” 

Coverage of Pella Christian at PCM tonight can be heard live on 92.1 KRLS beginning with pregame coverage at 6:30 p.m.