Dutch pass first round of state by waltzing past Forest City

Mike Helle

The Pella boys’ basketball team appears to be peaking at just the right time. The Little Dutch used a suffocating defense to force Forest City into 29 turnovers in its quarterfinal round game at the state tournament Tuesday night. Pella capitalized by scoring 37 points off of turnovers en route to an 85-50 pasting of the Indians.

Coach Mark Core used a 10 man rotation that forced Forest City to play an up tempo game that was suited to the liking of the Dutch. The Pella bench came through with 48 points as seven players scored eight or more points. Four players were in double figures.

Matt Meyers led the Dutch with 13 points. He also had four rebounds. Kyle Newendorp, Nick Dorman and Deckar Lynch came off the bench and scored 12 points apiece. Newendorp added five rebounds to his stat line.

Nathan Buchheit and Chris Bandstra contributed nine points each. They also recorded eight and four boards respectively. Blaine Forsythe chipped in eight points. Matt Dowie had a team high six assists and scored five points. Teag Klyn and Josh Pringle rounded out the scoring with three and two points.

Pella went on a 10-3 run late in the first quarter to open a 19-12 lead. The Dutch kept the pressure on and built a 42-28 lead at the half. Forest City threatened to make a run when they scored the first five points of the second half to cut the lead to single digits at 42-33. Pella answered by outscoring the Indians 21-6 over the final five minutes of the quarter to open an insurmountable 63-39 advantage.

“We were really happy with our defense,” stated Coach Core. “We identified their shooters and kept them under control. We also controlled the pace of the game. We were trying to keep (Tyler) Putz out of the paint and we wanted to keep a hand in (Kyle) Rosacker’s face. I think we frustrated them and then fatigue was a factor.”

“Offensively, we did a good job of sharing the ball,” continued Core. “We are very balanced and had great support off of the bench tonight. I wasn’t surprised we won, but I was surprised by the margin.”

Matt Meyers echoed a lot of his coach’s remarks. “We have a deep bench and anybody could start and we would just continue to rotate ten players,” said Meyers. “We have several scoring threats. Every game somebody different steps up. We have our goals set high. We want to play on Saturday night.”

Forest City Coach Dan Rosacker was impressed with the Dutch. He replied, “They (Pella) were a very good team, especially defensively. They are athletic and long and they create a lot of problems on the court. They simply took us out of our offense.”

Forest City won the North Iowa Conference Championship.

“It was a good start to the state tournament,” commented Nathan Buchheit. “We have so many options on this team.”

“We came in focused and ready to play. Forest City has a great team, we just played one of our best games of the season.”

Pella (21-3) will now play Mount Pleasant (22-1) in a Class 3A semi-final game at 6:35 p.m. tonight (Thursday). Mount Pleasant defeated the Dutch 63-61 the third game of the season. The winner of Thursday’s semi-final will play for the Class 3A title Saturday night at 6:05 p.m. The loser will play in a consolation game at noon Saturday.

(Perry Bell contributed to the story.)

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