The Pella Cross Country program begins the 2011 season with a lot of promise for success, and maybe even a little pressure, but the Dutch are staying focused on the more immediate picture for the time being. Head Coach Doug Cutler says while the girls and boys teams would certainly like to add more hardware to the trophy case, they are not yet zeroing in on the rest of Class 3A right now.

“There is that overlying presence that we know we’ve had a lot of success over the last four years – in both boys and girls we’ve had four state trophies – we want to continue that,” says Cutler.

“Obviously we want to compete well at the conference, district, and state level, but at this point we kind of consider that the result of more important goals – individual and team goals that we want to do amongst ourselves. We’re not too concerned about our competition just yet.”

The Pella cross country teams get to open the season on their home course, hosting the Pella Invitational on Saturday, September 3rd.