Pella Christian couldn’t hang on to a 12-point lead near the end of the third quarter, and it’s season came to an end last night with a 58-55 overtime loss to Albia in a class 2A boys district basketball final heard live on 92.1 KRLS.

The Eagles trailed by five in the first quarter, but battled back to take a 32-28 lead into the locker room, then put together a 9-0 third quarter run to build a 46-34 lead.  Albia scored the last five points of the third quarter and the first five points of the fourth quarter, and neither team led by more than one possession for the rest of the game.

Pella Christian had a chance to win at the end of regulation, but Jaedon Huisman’s three-pointer was off the mark.  Eric Mulder got the first bucket of overtime for PC, but Albia scored the final five points and won the game when Levi Schelhaas missed a deep three at the buzzer.  Coach JD Boer was proud of his guy’s effort even though it didn’t produce the result they wanted.

“Everybody’s going to make their run.  Our run came in the third quarter and we got a nice little lead.  But credit Albia, because they had a run in them, they made some big shots down the stretch.  They really got after us defensively and we made some mistakes on the offensive end of the floor.  It’s one that you wish you could have those moments back, those big plays, and credit those guys (Albia) for making them.”

Eric Mulder scored 15 points and grabbed 15 rebounds for the Eagles and Schelhaas had 15 as well.  Pella Christian’s season comes to a close at 12-12.