The word “historic” can often get thrown around more than it should — but in 2022, the Pella Cross Country teams are very much in the realm of making their state meet experience just that.

Following their boys-girls sweep of last week’s district meet at the Pella Sports Park, and a body of work that includes several team trophies and head-to-head wins over nearly every other contending Class 3A team, it’s clear that the Dutch hold a slight edge over the rest of the state heading into both championship races.

And while that success is far from guaranteed–and many excellent teams will be nipping at their heels, Head Coach Doug Cutler believes they’ve done everything they can to hoist two trophies at the awards ceremony, and both may just have a “First Place” inscribed on them.

“The number one thing we bring up almost every day is to control the things we can control,” Cutler says. “Those are things we’ve been consistent with all season long, and they have reasons to draw confidence from those things — from the way we activate, to the way we do our strength program, the distances we run on Saturdays, everything that we’ve done has prepared us very well…and we’re going to be very proud of what we’ve accomplished no matter what the result is, knowing that we’ve put ourselves in a position that so many teams would love to be in.”

“We are certainly going up there with an expectation to do well, and I think we will run well — we will just see if anyone can run faster.”

It’s rare territory for one school to take home both victories at state, as the last team to do so in any of the four classes was Decorah in 2012, which just so happened to also be the most recent occurrence in Class 3A. Dowling (2011 – 4A), Wahlert (2010 – 3A), and Xavier (2006 – 3A) are the only other three schools to do so since the Iowa High School Athletic Association and Iowa High School Girls Athletic Union switched to four classes in 2003.

Of course, while both Pella teams remain the favorites in their respective races, there are several contenders both will have to deal with. More extensive previews will be posted Wednesday (boys) and Thursday (girls), but the top-ranked Dutch boys will likely have quite the head-to-head race with #2 North Polk as the other team most likely in the hunt for gold, while the girls only narrowly defeated then-#1 Ballard last week and #3 Mount Vernon-Lisbon, #4 ADM, and #5 Solon will join those two jockeying for the title.

Updates from Fort Dodge can be heard on 92.1 KRLS Friday and Saturday from the Iowa High School State Cross Country meets.