Some of the Midwest’s best high school cross country teams had to be patient to outrun rounds of Saturday morning thunderstorms to race at Central College — and for the #5 in 3A Pella girls, it was worth the wait.

For the first time in school history, the Dutch won the prestigious Heartland Classic, further establishing the special nature of the ongoing fall season. Their previous all-time best at the race was 10th. The #2 in 3A Pella boys also had one of their best performances in a field loaded with 30 ranked teams from five states, placing 14th out of 37 schools.

It was the “Hydra” pack of Pella that largely earned the victory, with the trio of Marissa Ferebee (11th – 19:51), Raegan Sneider (12th-19:53.1), and Autumn Blink (17th – 20:01.2) earning critical placements, followed closely by Jacie Trine (47th – 21:02) and Macy Schroder (56th- 21:07.6) to round out the scoring.

The Dutch boys had two medalists – Chase Lauman (11th – 16:11.3) and Canaan Dunham (19th – 16:23.3), with Nathan Vander Waal (59th – 17:08.2), Kaiden Browne (133th – 17:51), and Noah Schuknecht (136th – 17:52.1) filling out their top five.

Find full results here. Pella runs next at Newton Tuesday.