The Pella volleyball team hosts its own tournament today, though it won’t quite have the feel they’d hoped for. While the new floor on the East Gymnasium at Pella High is nearly completed, it’s not ready for play, so the Lady Dutch are hosting today’s tournament across town at Pella Christian High School.

Pella head coach Bob Fessler says while the delays on the new gym floor have been frustrating to work with, the team is still remaining positive for the future.

“We thought it was going to be ready by the end of September, and then we thought it would be ready by the time we had our tournament, but those things have just kind of fallen apart and aren’t going to happen,” said Fessler. “We’re still being positive and we’re hoping that Senior Night on October 13th will be the night that we can get in there and play.”

Fessler adds that the delays aren’t the fault of the school or any other particular entity, but rather than the project has just taken longer than originally planned. The Pella volleyball team is 5-14 overall entering today’s tournament, which also includes Knoxville.

Panthers Coach Eric Fee says his team will get tested early and often in the tournament as rival Pella is the first opponent…

“Pella’s going to be a challenge. We’re going to face them in Regionals – we’re going to face them in the last conference match of the season – so Pella’s our opponent right out of the gate,” said Fee.

“We also have Mediapolis – who’s always a good 2A school – PCM’s playing fairly well, and Jefferson-Scranton is another good team we played in a tournament at Ballard earlier this season. Once again, we’ve got some good schools that we’re going to go out and compete against, and it’ll be a good tournament for us.”

Knoxville is nine-and-14 on the season.

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