Mid-Prairie claims titles at state XC

Fort Dodge is the destination every high school cross-country runner in Iowa aims for at the beginning of the season.

Having your final meet of the season there means your season ended as a participant at the state meet, and you were able to compete with the best of the best.

With the state meet occurring on Saturday, a pair of local cross-country teams made sure to go out with a bang, claiming multiple top finishes, including a team and individual state championship.

The Mid-Prairie boys? team went into the state meet ranked No. 3 in Class 2A, and left Fort Dodge as the top team in the state, picking up a state title as a group.

Scoring a total of 98 team points, the Golden Hawks edged Unity Christian in the team race by 17 points, securing the Class 2A state title.

?It was a balanced (effort),? Mid-Prairie cross-country head coach Mark Hostetler said. ?The time-spread we had was only 51 seconds from the first runner to the fifth runner. We had the top finish from the third runner, and three teams were better than us in the top two runners. Quite a few teams had better top two runners.?

Junior Peyton Miller led the way for the state-champion Golden Hawks, finishing in 17th-place overall and 11th for the team competition with a 17:02

Junior Zach Pettit finished in 19th-place overall (12th for team points) with  a 17:06, while Floyd Evans notched 21st (14th) with a 17:10.

?Peyton, who was battling some sinus problems, still ran a real good race and was able to move up quite a bit in the last mile, just like Zach and Floyd,? Hostetler said. ?(Zach and Floyd) got boxed in a little bit at the start, but they caught up to Peyton.?

Marshal Teets had a strong night in his junior state meet, picking up 45th overall (26th in team scoring) with a 17:37, while Quinn Schmidt rounded out the top five Hawks with a 60th-place finish (35th in team scoring) with a 17:54.

Brent Foster took 70th overall (44th in team) with an 18:01, while Andrew Schwartz took 120th (85th) with a 19:06.

?Marshal ran the race of his life to move us up, and flip-flopped with Quinn, our normal fourth runner. Quinn ended up being our fifth runner, and not too far behind him was Brent Foster.?

On the girls? side of the meet, Mid-Prairie made more noise, with junior Anna Hostetler claiming a spot as one of the state?s premiere runners, claiming the Class 2A state individual title and posting the top female time of the day, regardless of class.

Hostetler?s 17:57 on the day helped her cruise to the top spot in Class 2A, while being followed by her freshman sister, Marie Hostetler, who took second in the meet with an 18:15.

?The main thing is that they spent a lot of time preparing. You can?t do what they did by just practicing in-season and it has to be a pretty big time commitment. Anybody can do it if they put the time commitment in.?

Helmed by the pair of top finishes, the Golden Hawks took third overall at the Class 2A girls? meet, with the help of senior Greta Schmidt who finished in 55th-place overall (38th in team scoring) with a time of 21:07, while Abby Tornow took 58th (40th in team scoring) with a 21:09.

Kessa Jones posted a 21:35 for a 77th-place finish (52nd in team scoring) while Kyleigh Graham took 79th (54th) with a 21:40 and Abbagail Evans finished in 95th (66th) with a 22:12.

The Golden Hawks will be celebrating and enjoying their 2016 season, but they know hard work got them there, and their focus will be ready in 2017.

?There are a lot of teams that have won and placed high, and if they get complacent, a hungry team will take over. Right now, we are just thinking about how great we did this year and enjoying. We don?t want to look back too long. Each day in life is a step and we are going to keep going up.?

Mid-Prairie will lose only two seniors from each of the boys? and girls? squads for next season, meaning they will likely have high expectations come next season.