Cross country teams from the West Central Athletic Conference will be racing at Panorama today for the conference championship.

Boys and girls runners from Des Moines Christian, Earlham, AC/GC,  Interstate 35 Madrid, Ogden, Panorama, Pleasantville, Van Meter, West Central Valley, Woodward Academy, and Woodward-Granger will be racing in Panora. At last year’s race, Panorama’s Ella Waddle earned first place individually, just beating out AC/GC’s Kate Crawford. While Waddle has had an impressive junior campaign, Crawford is ranked ahead of her in the IowaRunJumpThrow.com rankings. Waddle is ranked fifth while Crawford comes in at #3. Panorama also had Payton Beckman finish third and Oliva Steffen finish in seventh. Both runners return to help the Panthers.

As a team, the Panther’s girls team took home the conference crown edging out Earlham by just four points a year ago. AC/GC finished in third with 94 points. Coming into the race, Panorama’s girls are ranked eighth with AC/GC right behind them at eleventh in Class 2A.

On the boys side, AC/GC is looking to build off their fifth place effort last year. They are currently not ranked, but are on IowaRunJumpThrow.com’s watch list.

The race will kick off in Panora at 5 p.m.