Photo courtesy of Troy L. Hugen Photography

The Pella Christian basketball teams split their first doubleheader of the season Tuesday night, as the Eagle boys downed Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont 77-51 and the girls fell to the Class 2A #2 Rockets 63-52, and both games were heard live on 92.1 KRLS.

In the boys contest, Pella Christian utilized a balanced offensive attack to avenge last season’s 64-55 loss to EBF. Jumping out to a 19-9 first quarter lead and a 34-25 halftime advantage, the Eagles pulled away from the Rockets with a 28-9 scoring margin in the third period. Pella Christian had four players score in double figures in the win, and put nine players on the scoreboard. Tysen De Vries led the way for the Eagles with a game-high 22 points, while Dane Geetings had 12, Josiah Vos had 11, and Isaiah Breems added 10. Following the win, head coach JD Boer said that he was happy with how his team opened the season.

“I just felt like from the tip our effort was really good. You know, and I feel like that’s really what propelled this team on both ends of the floor. We played nine guys and I felt like at no point was our energy level dipping. We could just keep rotating those guys in, so really a good team effort. Proud of the guys, proud of the way that this kind of came together here tonight. It’s a long journey ahead of us, but it feels good to get things off to a good start. ”

Finding themselves down 21-9 after the opening quarter, the Pella Christian girls responded by outscoring the ranked Rockets 20-9 in the second period to trail 30-29 at the intermission. EBF answered by outpacing the Eagles 21-5 in the third quarter, and despite winning the fourth quarter 18-12, Pella Christian’s upset bid fell short. Jessa De Vries led the Eagles in scoring off the bench, knocking down five three-pointers to score 17 points. Also coming off the bench, Rachel Kacmarynski added 10 points and Chloe Snyder scored nine.

The Pella Christian boys basketball team starts the season at 1-0 and are off until Friday night’s doubleheader at Oskaloosa. The Eagle girls dropped to 1-2 on the season and will try to get back to .500 Thursday night in a single game at PCM.