Photo courtesy of Troy L. Hugen Photography

A big first half propelled Pella Christian to a 35-0 Senior Night victory over Colfax-Mingo Friday night that was heard live on the KRLS2 stream at kniakrls.com.

The Eagles opened the scoring just over a minute into the game, with Johnson Morgan capping off a four-play, 66 yard drive with a 30-yard rushing touchdown. Following a Garrett Wielard interception, Brecken Ritzert connected with Caleb Volk for a 16-yard passing touchdown to put Pella Christian up 14-0 midway through the first quarter. The Eagles weren’t done scoring in the opening quarter, as Landon Nunnikhoven returned a punt 72-yards to the endzone to push the advantage to 21-0 with 4:48 left in the period. Midway through the second quarter, Cooper Spronk and Ritzert added five- and three- yard rushing touchdowns to enact the running clock. Colfax-Mingo possessed the ball for most of the second half, but the Eagles defense kept them away from the endzone to preserve the shutout and secure third place in Class 1A District 6. Pella Christian head coach Rich Kacmarynski said it was a great win to build momentum heading into playoff action next week.

“It feels really good, that’s exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to come in here and kind of make a statement and finish the regular season strong, which we did and for our defense to pitch a shutout was great. First shutout of the year for us, and then offensively, we did some really nice things in the first half. I’m really proud of our defense to get the shutout. Colfax is a nice offensive football team. They threw from almost 400 yards last week against Sigourney, so I thought we did a lot of nice things there.”

Pella Christian finishes the regular season at 3-5 overall and 3-2 in the district, and will learn their first-round postseason matchup today at 10 am.