Knoxville took Pella down to the wire last night but the Lady Dutch used their home field advantage and a walk off 2 RBI single by Taylor Veenstra in the bottom of the seventh inning completed a come from behind effort as Pella got a 7-6 win. Knoxville held a 6-4 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh, but two Pella hits and a Knoxville error loaded the bases with no outs. The Panthers second error of the inning allowed a run to score and Pella pulled within one run and still had bases loaded with no outs. Knoxville then turned a bang bang double play as Whitney Pavlat flew out to center field and Knoxville’s Kelsey Kingery gunned down Mandy Demeulenaere trying to tag and score. Pella was down to their final out when Veenstra, who was 0-3 at that point, ripped the game winner into deep right field. Pella coach Krista Demeulenaere said they had a good feeling when Veenstra stepped to the plate. She said they saw right field was open and were confident she could find that opening with her bat and she did.

Knoxville coach Steph Christner said the Panthers had a chance to win it but just didn’t get it done. She sais a key play in that seventh inning was when they failed to make the play on a bunt by Mackenzie Anthony, and another key play was in the fifth inning when they dropped a routine fly ball which would have been the third out and kept the game tied at 2-2 at that point, but instead kept the inning alive and Pella scored two runs to take a 4-2 lead.

Demeulenaere also said this was a nice way for Pella to bounce back from Wednesday’s loss to Pella Christian, and credited the girls for never giving up.

Mandy Demeulenaere got the win for Pella allowing seven hits while walking four and recording one strikeout. Jessica Stickel was outstanding in the circle for Knoxville but took the loss allowing seven hits while walking two and striking out nine, however the Panther defense committed five errors behind her. Christner says Stickel did what she needed to win, but the defense wasn’t there and you just can’t make those kind of mistakes at key points of the game and expect to win.

At the plate for Pella Lisa Houser led the way going 3-3 with an RBI, and for Knoxville Katie Ayers had the hot bat going 3-3 with two singles, a double and 2 RBI.

Pella improved to 16-9 overall and 8-3 in the LHC while Knoxville fell to 11-17 overall and 4-7 in conference play. Both teams are off until Monday and will face each other again Tuesday in Knoxville.