The No. 9 rated Pella Christian girls remained unbeaten 63-44 and the boys fell in double overtime 76-70 in the opening conference doubleheader of the season, as heard live on kniakrls.com via the KRLS2 stream.

On a night when eight out of nine varsity players scored for the Pella Christian girls, Head Coach Kevin Van Maanen says defense was key — and a switch to a press and one-on-one defense changed the flow of the game in the 2nd quarter.

“Things didn’t always go the way we wanted for most of the first half, but then I thought we needed to change the tempo up a little bit and we went to our press and that seemed like it just energized our girls,” he says.

Pella Christian was led by Morgan Fopma and her double-double, with 12 points and 12 rebounds, Cailey Wilson’s 14 points, Brooke Mitrisin’s 13, and a dozen from Isabella Baugh.

Despite multiple spectacular plays by Levi Jungling and big scoring night for David Kacmarynski, the Eagles lost against a vastly-improved Oskaloosa team in two overtimes, despite leading for almost the entirety of the second half.

Head Coach Larry Hessing says the team did not make enough plays late as the Indians inched closer.

“Coach [Marv] Van Wyk and I had the same comment to each other, kind of spontaneously at the same time after the game and that is there were some little things that hurt us–we didn’t give attention to a couple of little details and they ended up getting us in the end,” he says.

Kacmarynski had 32 points had five steals, and Levi Jungling scored 24. PC did not hit a three point shot after the halftime break. They had two shots at the end of the 4th quarter and first overtime to win, but just missed both.

The girls are 4-0, the boys fall the 1-1, and both stay at home Monday for a non-conference doubleheader with PCM, which can be heard live on KNIAKRLS.com.