While it wasn’t unexpected, it has been an uneven start to the new basketball season for the Pella Christian boys as they navigated several challenges before the calendar flipped to January.

The Eagles are 2-4 and have shown flashes of the dangerous Class 2A team they can be, but inconsistency and a lack of varsity experience may have contributed to the roller coaster nature of the beginning of the 2020-21 winter that has seen a close win, a blowout victory, and varying degrees of losses against a wide range of opponents.

Head Coach J.D. Boer says the team needs to take advantage of its strengths on a more frequent basis, and that includes their size and overall play making ability.

“I want to see our guys rebound the ball better, because I think that needs to be a strength of our team and so far we haven’t gotten there — but we will,” he says. “Offensively, we’ve got to find an identity a little bit, and I think that’s one of the problems with our turnovers.”

Pella Christian will open the new year with quite the test, against No. 1 in Class 2A Des Moines Christian. The girls-boys doubleheader begins on Saturday, January 2nd at 11:30 a.m., which will air live on 92.1 KRLS.