The Pella Lady Dutch have an overall, 13-6 win this season. Their next game is on February 14th against the Grinnell Tigers who are at an overall 17-2 win 9 this season.

According to senior, Kara Wichhart, The Pella Lady Dutch are improving together despite losing several starters from last year.

Senior, Chloe Van Vliet, says, “Of course, every team’s goal is to make it to state this year, and that is definitely one of ours since the beginning of summer basketball. Our pairings to get to state came out today, and it looks like we will have to play Knoxville and Grinnell to make it to state. In terms of goals right now, we need to continue to get better each day and prepare ourselves for two very good opponents that we have seen this year.”

This year’s theme is “Think it, Dream it, Do it.” The theme revolves around Chloe Van Vliet’s cousin, Ryan Flinchum. Flinchum and Van Vliet had a tight relationship centered around basketball. According to Van Vliet, The 41-year-old lived in Louisville, Kentucky, where he would stream and listen to all the Lady Dutch games. On April 19, 2017, Ryan Flinchum passed away.

“My cousin and I were very close when it came to basketball, and so this year’s theme is very important to me,” said Van Vliet. “He would also send me texts after most games, especially when things were not going well. In terms of him inspiring me, he has shown to me that in order to succeed you have to outwork everyone, and that is something that I try to bring into each practice. His state basketball theme when he played for Pella High was “Think it. Dream it. Do it.”, and that is also something that we preach in practice and before games.”