The Perry cross country teams open up the season tonight when they travel to Ames and beautiful Iowa State University course in a meet hosted by Gilbert.  The Bluejays appear to be just as young as the Jayettes with a number of underclassmen filling out the large 30 man roster.

“We have around 20 high school kids out and 10 junior high runners so a lot of new faces providing a new challenge for us,” smiled Head Coach Jeff Fox.  “We lost a lot of our top runners from last year including Keegan Pfau so it will be a challenge for our new faces to step up and provide fresh energy for the squad.”

Fox has enjoyed coaching some strong runners over the past 3 years with Atem Akok and Pfau leading the way.  He says there are a couple of guys to keep an eye on this season who will look to carry on the strong tradition.

“Sophomore Emilio Gonzalez has really looked good and appears to be leading the way.  Senior Fernando Catalan has developed into a leader for us while new senior Bradley Godwin has showed a lot of promise.”

Running for both the Bluejays and Jayettes start tonight at 5:00.