It was a busy Saturday for the Dutch fall teams, with the last of the bunch debuting for the 2026 season. Pella’s cross country teams competed at the Cedar Rapids Prairie Invitational.
Pella’s #1 in 3A girls defeated all teams at the event, regardless of class, with a team score of 61. Without state #2 individual Elsie Brenneman for a college visit and with the freshmen running in the 4K race, the Dutch still flexed their impressive depth to defeat a field that included multiple ranked 4A teams.
Lizzy Vande Voort was 5th overall individually, followed by Ruth Dunham (10th), Carleigh Altwine (12th), Erica Vos (13th), and Dana McCulla (21st).
The Dutch boys were 2nd in the orange division and 7th among all teams in a 4A heavy field. Among the 3A and smaller schools, Zander Kanis was 8th, Jonah Ebersole was 9th, and Brandt Vande Voort was 10th individually. Find full results here.
Head Coach Doug Cutler said, “This was a great first race for this group. A 0:36 spread from #1 to #5 is encouraging for today. This was a necessary experience if we are going to reach our full potential. We were definitely challenge with an early morning leave time and nearly two hours of travel, but the guys faced the challenge admirably. We were without Porter Carlton and Caiden Tuel today. We ran well today overall, but what is really encouraging is I believe we will look significantly better 2-3 more races from now. The signs are there.”
Pella will next host their home XC invitational on Saturday at Central College, with two races only beginning at 9 a.m.
The #10 in 4A Dutch volleyball team opened tournament play Saturday at the Skip Anderson Classic in Bondurant, going 4-2 on the day. Pella had wins against Carlisle (21-13, 21-10), Gilbert (21-15, 21-16), North Polk (21-18, 21-19), and Winterset (21-17, 21-17). The Dutch fell to Knoxville (23-1, 18-21, 6-15) and Ames (16-21, 16-21).
Head Coach Joel Allman said, “Overall, I was pretty happy with how we performed today. I thought we cleaned up our side of the net quite a bit from when we last played on Tuesday. Our serve receive was pretty solid throughout the day and all of our hitters took some great swings. Our serving was much cleaner as well. Now we need continue to get better at keeping the pressure up on a consistent basis as well as finding consistency from point to point. Next week will be a great opportunity against great competition to continue making ourself better.”
Pella’s overall record is 5-2 and they next travel to DCG on Tuesday for a best-of-five.
