Both Red Rock Rivalry basketball games weren’t decided until the fourth quarter last night, with Pella prevailing in both ends of the doubleheader heard on both KNIA and KRLS – 60-51 in the girls game and 65-57 in the boys contest.

The 9th-ranked Lady Dutch found themselves trailing by 14 mid-way through the third quarter, but used a 12-0 run to get within two. Chloe Van Vliet then hit three-pointers on the first two possessions of the fourth quarter for Pella, and they never trailed again.

Lady Dutch coach Jerod Garland says that it was quite a response from his club in the second half.

“When we talked to the girls at halftime, there weren’t a whole lot of Xs and Os. It was more asking our girls to have a little pride, play a little harder and outwork them. As the second half wore on, I thought we started to get those loose balls, get the block outs and get the run outs, and those were all very important to this victory.”

Van Vliet led all scorers with 26 points, and Emily Holterhaus added 13 points and 12 rebounds. Knoxville’s Katie Keitges had a monster 23 and 15 double-double.

The Lady Dutch improve to 10-4 while the Panthers drop to 11-4.

In the boys game, Pella saw a 12-point third quarter lead trimmed to one, but Logan Shetterly and Nick DeJong combined for 17 points in the fourth quarter to help the Little Dutch pull away.

Knoxville coach Jeff Larson says that they just couldn’t come up with the big play when the game was within reach.

“We couldn’t get over that hump. I still believe that if we hit some of the wide-open shots that we had that it would have been a different basketball game. But we didn’t and we have to learn from that and we’ll see what happens.”

The Panthers’ Patrick Crawford topped the scoring charts with 26 points, while Shetterly had 23 for Pella and DeJong put up 18 points and grabbed 12 boards.

Pella is now 8-5 on the season and Knoxville falls to 6-8.

Both the Lady Dutch and Little Dutch host Grinnell Friday night in the Little Hawkeye Conference, while the Panthers will trek to Bloomfield that evening to tangle with Davis County in the South Central Conference.