The Knoxville Cross Country Squads head to Grinnell this afternoon. The boys were ninth led by Max Purvis and his 34th place in Saturday’s Central College Invitational. Boys Coach Michael Splavec tells KRLS Sports the race pace is what is crucial allowing his guys to run together and finish as close to each other as possible.

Splavec:
“You Want to have that spread where you’re scoring points, so it’s nice. Those guys have run all summer and challenged each other every other mile they were working. They kind of adopted that and really gone with it. They’ve really started the races together and some break off after the first mile or so. It’s really good they start together and get into their race pace after that.”

The girls had similar results finishing eighth and had their second-sixth runners finish within seven places of each other. The Grinnell Invitational begins this afternoon at 4:15pm at Ahrends Park in Grinnell.