Indians give Eagles tough test

By JIM GRIES

PELLA — It’s not often when a coach who’s team gets beaten by 38 points has a lot of positive things to say about the lopsided loss.

But Oskaloosa coach Burdette Brown had a lot of good things to say about his team’s 64-26 defeat at the hands of Pella Christian Friday night in Little Hawkeye Conference action.

The Indians have not gotten off to good starts in the last few games, combining to score 2 points including going scoreless against Pella last week.

Oskaloosa (0-6, 0-4) only had four points in the first 8 minutes, but played perhaps its best game of the season.

“You look at the score and you’d never guessed it,” Brown said. “You see how we executed when we came right out of the chute, it was the first time we’ve executed our offense and defense all at the same time. It was neat. We gave up one offensive rebound in the first half. They were one-and-done. If they didn’t make it, we got the rebounds. I couldn’t ask for anything more from the kids.

“Once again, our depth is lacking We need to get some more depth because when we get a half-step slow, we’re done at that point. We’re not giving up the back-door layups so much any more, but we’re allowing the passes to get inside and get easy shots on us.”

The Indians had been turning the ball over a lot in the first quarter, especially early on. But on this night, they got two free throws by Sarah Hynick on their first possession. Unfortunately, she missed both, but Pella Christian (5-2, 3-1) had problems of its own getting the ball to go through the basket. Bekah Posthuma got the game’s first points at the 3:53 mark and the Indians’ Allison Rohloff hit two foul shots to get Oskaloosa on the board at the 3:36 mark.

The Eagles would add two more buckets until the Indians got their first field goal of the game on a basket by LeAnan White at the first-quarter buzzer that made it 6-4.

Pella Christian extended the lead to 10-4 1 minutes into the second period on an offensive rebound basket and a pair of free throws by Courtney Kroeze. Hynick pulled the Indians to 10-6, but the Eagles built the lead to 16-6 over the next 2 minutes to put the Indians in a hole which they would not come out of.

The stubborn Oskaloosa team kept pace with Pella Christian despite getting just one field goal in the third quarter. Hynick’s basket with 7:40 to go got the Indians to within 21-16, but that would be the last field goal they would get for more than 9 minutes,.

Meanwhile, the Eagles would score 14 points on their first 10 possessions to take full control of the game.

The final Oskaloosa bucket came at the 6:50 mark of the final quarter by Hynick as it mustered just three more points the rest of the way.

The Indians went to the charity stripe 18 times and made just 2 of 19 shots from the field in the second half.

“We’re sitting between 20 and 25 percent shooting night-in and night-out and we’ve been working a lot on shooting,” Brown said. “We’re not shooters yet and that’s what we’re trying to develop in the younger grades because that’s where it needs to start.

“But I can’t fault the effort of the kids. What I’m excited about is we go in the locker room at halftime it was almost difficult because they were so excited and we had to try and get them focused again. We’re getting better, but we have start finishing games.”  

Oskaloosa hosts Boone Tuesday night in an LHC matchup.



Pella Christian 64, Oskaloosa 26

Osky 4 10 7 5 — 26

PC 6 15 20 23 — 64

OSKALOOSA (26) — Allison Rohloff 1 2-2 4, Emily Street 0 0-0 0, Jayce Carter 0 0-0 0, Megan Gott 2 2-4 6, Sarah Hynick 4 2-4 10, Sam Lowry 0 1-2 1, LeAnn DeGroot 0 0-0 0, LeAnan White 1 0-0 2, Heather Sereg 0 2-2 2, Dana Van Renterghem 0 1-4 1. Totals 8-33 10-18 27.

Total fouls — 17.

PELLA CHRISTIAN (64) — Emily Stursma 3 0-0 6, Jasmin Schelhaas 2 2-2 7, Bekah Posthuma 4 1-2 10, Jana Van Zanten 3 6-7 12, Cayla Collins 6 0-0 12, Heather Van Sant 0 1-2 1, Shelby Warner 2 0-0 4, Courtney Kroeze 2 2-2 6, Courtney Van Kooten 1 1-2 3, Jackie Veenstra 1 1-2 3. Totals 24 14-19 64.

3-point goals — 2 (Schelhaas, Posthuma_. Total fouls — 10.

Text Only