The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks ran very well at the Panther Invitational in Monticello on Saturday. The event had some of the best teams and runners in the eastern half of the state.
The No. 2 ranked Golden Hawk girls won the team title with 67 points, beating Tipton’s 79 points in the River Valley Conference.
At 19:48, Brooklyn Stutzman was in fourth place for the Golden Hawks. In 18:22, Noelle Steines of Tipton won the race.
Other Golden Hawks who did well were Tessa Brokaw in 17th, Rachel Hostetler in eighth, Dessa Poll in 21st, Hannah Rodgers in 33rd, and Kyrie Poll in 44th.
With 83 points, the No. 2 Mid-Prairie boys’ team came in second place in Class 2A. Their score of 57 points was enough to win the team title.
Emmett Swartzentruber came in fifth for the Hawks in a time of 16:53. In 15:20, Quentin Nauman of Western Dubuque won.
Preston Yutzy came in ninth, Jayse Yoder came in 18th, Max Swartzentruber came in 20th, Luke Brokaw came in 36th, Jesse Stultz came in 44th, and Thomas Flynn came in 54th.
Yutzy and Hostetler, Mid-Prairie’s second-best runners, talked about the day for them and their team after the meet.
“Today, our goal was to pace a little better than at Williamsburg,” Yutzy said. Slow down a bit in the first mile so that we can go faster in the second mile. I believe we mostly hit that.
I believe this is our best subject. It’s flat and right on. If there’s a race, everyone knows you’ll go for it. You have to do the same here.
You can set a new record there. We were pretty pleased with how well the team did; we got a lot of PRs.
Hostetler also said, “I got off to a fast start.” I knew a girl was coming up behind me at the end, so I tried to finish without going past her.
They are a great team. My team is great, and they always help me out. Seeing all our hard work pay off is so much fun!”
On Saturday, the Golden Hawks will play again when they go to Pella for the Heartland Classic.