As is the case most seasons, Pella Christian cross country runners will face the daunting task of competing with schools doubling, and sometimes tripling their roster in the Little Hawkeye Conference.
It’s why Head Coach Jocelyn Meinders feels two scheduling additions this fall were key in keeping up confidence among the squads.
The Eagles will travel to the Chariton meet for the first time in years, she says, mainly due to a scheduling conflict that no longer exists.
“The Chariton invite used to be the week before state qualifying, and they bumped it up earlier in the season so they could get some more schools, and we haven’t been to it since they moved it up earlier in the season, so interested to see what that one looks like now,” she says. “We really like that course, we really have always enjoyed that meet in the past, so I wanted to go if we could, and our fall break worked out.”
And later in the year, after PC will run against much larger schools at the conference meet, Meinders believes a confidence boost will be needed. She says Saydel was a perfect fit to get her team ready for qualifying meets.
“We are running against schools who are much, much larger than us–their teams are three times as large as us so it’s really hard to compete as a team there,” she says. “So Saydel’s a nice one that has more schools a little bit more our size, and it’s just more of a fun one for JV to end on and for the ones running in the state qualifying meet to put themselves in the right mindset for qualifying.”
Pella Christian will begin the cross country season at Central College on Labor Day weekend.