After a week filled with road games, the Pella Christian basketball teams return to Eagle Lane tonight to host Newton in a Little Hawkeye Conference doubleheader.

The Eagle girls are coming off their first extended time off since Christmas break, last competing on the road in a loss to Norwalk last Tuesday. The Cardinal girls have struggled as of late, going 1-5 since defeating Pella Christian on January 7th, including falling to Dallas Center-Grimes and Pella last week. Eagles head coach Brendan Foughty said that while fatigue due to the team being short-handed may have played a factor in their early season loss to Newton, his team must be better on the defensive end of the floor than they were in the first meeting.

“Part of that could be the legs at the end of the game, or maybe we got a little bit exhausted. Chloe [Snyder] went down that game, so inevitably, we’re trying to figure out a new rotation and figure out who’s going to make things work offensively in the second half. And so that was a challenge, but above anything else, it was the defensive end where we just were a little sloppy, our attention to detail wasn’t very good, and our communication wasn’t very good. We got to be better defensively and we’ve had a great few days of practice, and we’ll be ready against Newton to make sure that we’re locked down on the defensive end. And then we believe that our defense will lead to offense.”

The Pella Christian boys are fresh off of a 2-1 week on the road, defeating Centerville and Van Meter last Monday and Thursday, while falling to Norwalk on Tuesday. The Newton boys have gone 3-4 since defeating the Eagles last month, and have also lost their last two games against DCG and Pella. Pella Christian head coach Marv Van Wyk says that coming off a busy week, they’ve been working on making the necessary tweaks to avenge their loss to the Cardinals the first time around.

“Playing a team the second time around in conference, there’s always adjustments. We’re just working on those little things that hurt us the first time around, as far as making sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to on the defensive end and executing on the offensive end against a good defensive team.”

The Pella Christian perspective of tonight’s doubleheader can be heard live on the KRLS2 stream and viewed live on the Pella Christian YouTube channel, beginning with pregame coverage at 5:45 pm.