Drizzle and the coolest temperatures of the cross country season to this point didn’t slow down area schools at Tuesday’s English Valleys Invite at Knoll Ridge Golf Course in North English. Mid-Prairie took home both the boys and girls team championships in the event. Coming off of a strong performance at a Saturday event in Monticello Mid-Prairie kept the early season momentum going by sweeping the hardware. The Mid-Prairie girls posted a team score of 48 points, Louisa-Muscatine was second with 69 points. The Golden Hawks were led by Abby Tornou with her second place finish overall in 17:32.

The Mid-Prairie boys finished with a team score of 44 points, besting second place Clear Creek Amana by 30 points. The Golden Hawks were led on the night by Ryan Errthum who crossed the finish line in 18:08 good for 3rd place overall. After the meet Mid-Prairie Head Coach Mark Hostetler talked about his team’s performance

“Our first girl was Abby Tornou and I think she had a solid race and she is still learning how to run the longer race and the other two freshmen are doing the same, and Callie Shaw was our third place runner tonight, and she has usually been our fifth runner she’s improving fast and had a really good race today, and our third freshmen was Gretta Schmidt she finished 18th,” Hostetler said. “The boy’s seem to fluctuate a lot down at the third fourth and fifth spot, Ryan Errthum and led the team in third place with 18:08, and then Gabe Miller is a sophomore and he moved up to be our fourth runner in 13th place and that was a big improvement for him.”

On the individual side Evan Mahler of Highland took home the meet championship. After the meet Mahler spoke about the run and what he has focused on to improve this season.

“I was trying to wear out the people who were racing beside me, if they could keep up then I was going to kick it in on the last lap, and I’ve been working really hard on breathing because that was a problem at state, and I’ve worked that out and now I’m getting better times,” Mahler said.

IMS posted a pair of sixth place individual finishes. For the IMS girls Renee Buckwalter finished in sixth place with a time of 18:23, on the boys side Kirby Shetler ran 18:35 for sixth place. As a team the IMS boys finished with 248 points in 9th place

Other area girls team finishes included Keota in 8th with 275 points. Area team finishes on the boys side included Highland with 81 points tied for third place with Louisa-Muscatine, and Sigourney was sixth with 189 points.