All preseason long and through the first few weeks of competition, it’s been clear the Pella cross country teams had something special brewing this fall. And in a race featuring most of central Iowa’s top ranked teams in Class 3A, the #3 Dutch boys and #5 girls won both races among all classes at the 42nd Ballard Invitational Monday evening.

The Pella boys ran away in the all classes race with 59 team points, with #2 ranked North Polk placing 2nd at 104 and #2 in 2A Des Moines Christian at 110 to round out the top three. Freshman Canaan Dunham was 3rd among all individuals (16:12.1), closely followed by Senior Chase Lauman (16:30.3, 5th) and Junior Nathan VanderWaal (16:42.8, 10th). Noah Schuknecht (17:17.9, 18th) and Zach Neumann (17:26.7, 23rd) rounded out the team’s scoring.

In a field featuring four of Class 3A’s top five girls teams coming into the meet, the Dutch girls edged #3 Ballard with 118 team points to 130 for the host Bombers. Indianola — 12th in 4A, was 3rd at 136 points and top-ranked Solon placed 4th (141 points). Pella’s leading pack finished 11th-13th among individuals, with Marissa Ferebee (20:24), Raegan Snieder (20:28.4), and Autumn Blink (20:28.7) all pacing each other, with Lizzie Neumann (21:21.7 – 35th) and Jacie Trine (21:49 – 47th) rounding out the girls’ scoring.

Click here for full results from the boys varsity race and here for the girls varsity competition. Pella is back at the Central College course this Saturday to take on some of the Midwest’s best teams at the Heartland Classic.