Photo by Troy Hugen

The Class 1A #9 ranked Pella Christian football team has their first road game of the season tonight, as they travel to take on Panorama.

The Eagles got off to a great start to the season last week, with a 56-28 win over longtime rivals Des Moines Christian. The Eagles flexed their muscle in the run game against the Lions, rushing for 516 yards and 8 touchdowns. The dominant ground attack included a career night from running back Benny Schirz, who carried the ball 23 times for 215 yards and five touchdowns. While Pella Christian’s offense had a big game running the ball in the season opener, Head Coach Rich Kacmarynski thinks they’ll be more balanced in the weeks to come.

“A balanced offensive team is more difficult to stop than an unbalanced offensive team. The best offenses can run it and throw it. We can throw it. We have a 3-year returning starter quarterback, our receiving core is developing, so I think obviously we’ll continue to be balanced offensively.”

Panorama enters the game after a week 1 win over Colfax-Mingo 57-33. Similar to Pella Christian, Panorama heavily utilized the run game in week one. The Panthers’ starting running back ran the ball 34 times for 304 yards and 6 touchdowns. On defense, the Panthers showed vulnerability to giving up big plays. Colfax-Mingo completed just 14 passes against Panorama last week but racked up 364 yards and 5 touchdowns on those completions. 

Coverage of tonight’s game between Pella Christain and Panorama can be heard live on 92.1 KRLS, beginning with the Smash Park Radio Pregame Show at 6:30.