Two weeks ago, Pella and Gilbert slugged it out in the regular season finale with the Class 4A District 4 football championship on the line. Tonight, the stakes are even higher as the two teams will go head-to-head in the state quarterfinals, with the winner earning a coveted trip the UNI-Dome next week.

Gilbert won the first contest 14-7 with a strong defensive effort and a one-two rushing punch of running back Will Hawthore and quarterback Ethan Rash, who combined for 246 yards on the ground. The Dutch mustered just 178 yards of total offense for the game.

It’s going to be a challenge to match the defensive effort that they gave two weeks ago against the best running attack in class 4A, but it’s one that coach Jay McKinstrey says his club is up for.

“It’s a mental toughness thing, it really is. They’re going to have to do play after play after play after play. It’s hard playing that way because even if you get them into second and seven and then third and five, they can pick up a first down and then you have to go back and start all over again.”

McKinstrey says that on the other side of the ball, they’ve got to find ways to be effective and score more than just seven points.

“I feel good about our game plan tonight offensively. We certainly have come up with a few different ways to throw the football and different ways we can run the football. We’ve watched film to see what other teams did and what we didn’t do the first time and look to see what we can correct. We think we have a good plan, but whether it will work or not I don’t know. The number one thing is that we have to be more physical.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 tonight at Ron & Joyce Schipper Stadium on the Central College campus. Andrew Schneider and Randy Sikkema will provide the play-by-play on 92.1 KRLS and Pella Dutch Live, beginning with pregame coverage at 6:30.