With their run to a third straight football state championship, many members of the Pella High boys basketball team got very little practice before the hoops season began.

In fact, Pella’s football – basketball multi-sport athletes are just now to the point where they’ve had as much practice time as the basketball only players had gotten at the beginning of the season.

Ryan Van Wyk, the hero of the football team’s UNI-Dome run, and the leading scorer on the basketball team, says his body has finally made the switch.

“It did take a little bit of getting used to, obviously, because football season did go so long. At this point, most of the guys feel like we’re in basketball shape, and we’re ready to make a run.”

The third-ranked Little Dutch closed out the 2016 portion of their season with a thrilling one-point win against Norwalk Tuesday, lifting their record to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the Little Hawkeye Conference.

Pella returns to action after the holiday break on January 3rd as part of a non-conference girl-boy doubleheader against A-D-M.