Photo courtesy of Troy L. Hugen Photography

The Pella Christian cross country teams begin their postseason on Monday, running at the Little Hawkeye Conference cross country championships in Indianola.

A year ago, the Eagles had some of their best ever performances in school history, as the boys team took 5th in their race and the girls finished in 4th. Of their six scorers at the conference meet last season, the Class 2A #16 Eagle boys return four runners. Tysen De Vries was the top finisher at last season’s conference meet in 23rd. Shaun Bos finished 48th in the meet a year ago, while Deacon Brandhorst was 50th and Sawyer Meinders was 55th. The Pella Christian girls return two of their six scorers from the Little Hawkeye championship meet in 2022. As a freshman, Bailey Vos took 16th place, and Jaclyn Holmes was 22nd. Karis Fikkert is the other returning scorer from the league meet last season, as she was 42nd last fall. Eagles Head Coach Mike Buchheit says that he is hoping to see his squad continue to improve in the conference, as they face some of the best teams across the state. 

“We’ve been watching this build for a couple of years, but it wasn’t two or three years ago that we were last in the conference pretty consistently. So, last year we had some good success, our girls finished fourth in the conference out of eight teams and the boys finish fifth. So, every year we move a little closer and perform a little better and sometimes it doesn’t show up in the standings in the conference but we’re just trying to build the program and be successful.”

The 2023 Little Hawkeye Conference championship at Pickard Park in Indianola will start with the JV races at 4:30 p.m., with varsity action scheduled for 5:20 p.m.