The Washington cross country team starts their season tonight when they head to Ottumwa for the Pekin Invitational.

They were supposed to see their first action on Tuesday of this week, but mother nature had other plans.  With the cancellation, the kids on the team are fired up to get started.  Head coach Stefanie Haworth is too.

“I’m just anxious to get them out there running and see what we really look like compared to other teams,” Haworth said.  “We’ll run against Ottumwa, Pekin, Sigourney, Van Buren, Fairfield.  So it’s teams we don’t always face (though we see Fairfield all season long), but it’s kind of fun to compare.”

Even with the first meet of the year coming up, Haworth still isn’t entirely sure what her top seven will look like for each team.  But she says there’s something about the Pekin meet in particular that will make that decision easier.

“What’s nice about this meet, they don’t break it up JV/varsity; it’s just high school boys, and then high school girls.  So it makes my job a little easier determining who my top seven are for varsity for the next meet, because it’s a straight head-to-head competition with the same team.  SO that top seven will kind of figure itself out.”

Tonight’s meet in Ottumwa is scheduled to start at 4:30.