Great at State

With two teams competing on the day, Saturday was a busy day for the Mid-Prairie cross-country teams.

After qualifying both the boys? and girls? teams for the state meet, both teams posted strong days in the Class 2A meet, finishing with competitive scores against the other best teams in the state.

The Mid-Prairie boys? team left Fort Dodge as the fourth-best team in the state, posting a team score of 130, behind Monticello (86), Unity Christian (79) and state champion Garner-Hayfield-Ventura, who finished the meet with 59 points.

The Golden Hawks were led by sophomore Peyton Miller and senior Luke Sigler, who finished in 22nd and 23rd place (15th and 16th for team scoring) respectively. Miller finished a half second faster than Sigler, with both posting times of 17:15.

Senior Hawk Ryan Errthum ran a 17:36 at the meet, taking 37th (25th for team scoring overall), while sophomore Floyd Evans finished in 44th (28th) with a 17:42 and Andrew Schwartz finished in 69th (46th) with an 18:04 to round out the varsity boys? scoring.

Junior Brent Foster ran an 18:19 to take 87th (58th) place, while sophomore Marshal Teets finished in 115th (80th) with an 18:57 to round out the varsity squad.

Mid-Prairie?s boys? team will lose two seniors from its state-qualifying squad heading into 2016.

The Mid-Prairie girls? team finished in a bottleneck in the middle of the pack, taking eighth place overall among the 15 qualified teams.

The Golden Hawks finished with 213 points, just 21 behind sixth-place Unity Christian. Cascade won the state meet with a score of 76.

Mid-Prairie was led by sophomore Anna Hostetler, who finished in 14th place overall (eighth in the team scoring), running a 19:48, while junior Greta Schmidt finished in 58th (40th in team scoring) with a 21:09.

Senior Maddi Zahradnek finished the meet with a 21:13 to take 60th place (42nd for team scoring), while senior Hannah Van Roekel finished with a 21:17 for a 68th-place finish (47th) and freshman Kessa Jones ran a 22:21 for 107th place (76th) to round out the scoring.

Junior Abby Tornow finished in 120th (88th) and freshman Kate Cavanagh finished in 121st (89th), with a 22:54 and 22:58 respectively.

The Mid-Prairie girls? team will graduate two seniors from its team this season.

Also in the Class 2A meet, Columbus senior Josh Keller finished in 14th place in the boys? meet, running a 16:48, to earn a medal at the state meet.

The time was the second-best time of the season for Keller, who claimed the tenth Top-15 state finish in the program?s history.

??I couldn?t be prouder of the way he finished the season and his career,? Columbus head coach Steve Riley said. ?He definitely got ready for all the important races, and this was the best all year.?

In the Class 1A meet, Highland senior Keiffer Sexton finished his high school cross-country career with his best state finish.

Sexton claimed fifth place at the state meet, running the race in 17:00, finishing 27 seconds away from the meet champion, Andrew Stumbo from Ogden.

The fifth-place finish marks Sexton?s third Top-20 state finish, second Top-10 performance and first Top-5 finish of his career.