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For the fifth time in school history and the second consecutive season, the Pella football team will play in the Class 3A Semifinals with a goal of making it to the state championship for the first time ever when they battle New Hampton at 7:30pm tonight at the UNI Dome. Pella’s defense has been tested in every post season game so far but they’ve answered the call each time withstanding strong rushing attacks from Williamsburg, Grinnell and Centerville. Coach Jay Mckinstrey says New Hampton may be the strongest rushing attack they’ve faced so far but he says his guys have been there and know what they must do tonight:
“Our defense will definitely be challenged tonight. We have faced teams like that recently and hopefully those games will help us be prepared for tonight. We can not let them have short fields, so hopefully we’ll win the battle of field position and make them go the length of the field if they’re going to score. We’ve done a great job of that these last few games and we’ll need to do it again tonight to be successful”
Mckinstrey says offensively they feel confident they can throw the football against the Chickisaws and says that’s a weapon they plan to use:
“We’re definitely going to need to throw the football against these guys. They’ve got some big strong lineman and a couple linebackers that are very strong against the run. We feel pretty good about Blaine’s (Forsythe) ability to throw the football and our receivers. We may have some size advantage against their secondary and hopefully we can exploit that. We certainly plan to run the ball some too, I think that’s the only way we’re gonna win is if we mix it up successfully”
New Hampton has nearly 3900 yards total offense this year, but they rely heavily on the run as 3300 of those have come via their ground game, led by Brock Boeding’s 1600 yards and 21 touchdowns. . Meanwhile Pella is more balanced with 1450 yards and 15 touchdowns through the air from quarterback Blaine Forsythe while Brett Bogaard leads the ground attack with 959 yards and 15 touchdowns. Unranked Pella is the only number 4 seed to make it to the semifinals and definitely earned their way to the dome beating 7th ranked Williamsburg, 8th ranked Grinnell and 4th ranked Centerville. You can hear tonight’s game live on 92.1 FM KRLS with Jamie Brockman and Randy Sikkema starting with the pre game show at 7pm. Tonight’s game WILL NOT be streamed live on kniakrls.com due to state regulations.