Photo courtesy of Mason Westerkamp

The Pella Christian girls basketball team got back in the win column ahead of Christmas break Thursday night with a 48-34 victory over Grand View Christian, while the Eagle boys fell to the Thunder 82-49 in the back half of the doubleheader heard live on 92.1 KRLS.

In the opening game of the twinbill, the Pella Christian girls used strong rebounding and defensive efforts to overcome difficulties getting shots to fall. The Eagles held narrow leads of 10-9 at the end of the first quarter and 22-19 at halftime, before building up their advantage to 34-25 after the third quarter and finishing off the fourteen point win. Offensively, Pella Christian connected on just 27.3% of their shots from the field and 16.7% from three-point range, but pulled down 30 offensive rebounds and forced 21 turnovers to improve to 4-5 overall on the season. Rachel Kacmarynski and Chloe Snyder helped propel the Eagles to the victory, as Kacmarynski had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds and Snyder just missed a double-double with 16 points and nine rebounds. 

In the nightcap, the Pella Christian boys found themselves in a shootout early in the contest, but couldn’t keep pace with the Thunder over the final 24 minutes of play. The Eagles were tied with Grand View Christian at 20-20 at the end of the first quarter, but the Thunder used a 29-5 second quarter and 17-8 third quarter to pull away for the victory. Leading the Pella Christian boys offense in the loss was Gilbert Flagel with 10 points, while Garrett Wielard and Landon Fransman had nine and eight respectively, as the Eagles fell to 3-3 overall.

The Pella Christian basketball teams are now off for Christmas break. The Eagle boys return to the court with a home non-conference game against West Branch on January 3rd, while the girls open up 2025 in the opening game of a Little Hawkeye Conference doubleheader at Newton on January 7th.