The dynasty continued Saturday at the Lakeside Municipal Golf Course in Fort Dodge for the Mid-Prairie girls cross country team. The No. 1 ranked Golden Hawk girls captured their fourth consecutive class 2A team state championship. Mid-Prairie posted a score of 45 points, to beat Tipton who finished second with 107 points. The Golden Hawk’s team mark of 45 is the second best team score in the history of Iowa cross country at state in the 5K era. Mid-Prairie was led by individual state champion Danielle Hostetler. The freshman crossed the finish line ahead of everyone in a time of 19:08. Her championship marks the fifth consecutive year that Mid-Prairie has had the individual 2A champion, the previous four belong to her older sisters Anna and Marie Hostetler. Other Golden Hawk finishers included Jaden Yoder third, Mitzy Evans seventh, Sydney Yoder ninth, Ana Fleming 25th, Phoebe Shetler 26th and Abby Fleming 28th. This is Mid-Prairie’s 10th state team championship as a school.

The Mid-Prairie boys finished in sixth place in the team race. The No. 6 ranked Golden Hawks ended with 177 points. Danville won the championship with 64 points. Jamie Stutzman led Mid-Prairie in 20th with a time of 18:02. Other Mid-Prairie runners included Lucas Bontrager 25th, Nathan Wallington 39th, Chandler Hershberger 41st, Thaddeus Shetler 52nd, Mose Yoder 72nd and Daniel Rodgers 102nd. After the race, Mid-Prairie head coach Mark Hostetler talked about his teams. “It was a rough race because of the wind but overall I think we did really well mentally and that was the most important thing today. As far as Danielle (Hostetler), when she finished at Pella in the second race of the year with the hip injury and she couldn’t walk for a few days after, I thought her season was done there. I’m just glad she got through it. Jaden (Yoder) worked hard and last year she was 63rd at state, this year she got third. That’s a big improvement. Mitzi Evans ran a super race to finish in the top 10 with Syndey (Yoder) right behind her. Ana (Fleming), Phoebe (Shetler)  and Abby (Fleming), moved up a lot. They were pretty far back even with an 800 to go, and they passed a lot of people in that half mile. Our guys kind of key off of Jamie. It was right after the mile when Jamie got knocked down. When he fell, he jerked, and pulled his left side and his core. He had a hard time running, breathing and just finishing the race. Lucas Bontrager ran his heart out today. Chandler (Hershberger) and Nathan Wallington finished well, but there wasn’t an even pacing or moving up slowly strategy through the race. It was a gutsy race for all of them. There were times in the race where they struggled and times where they performed really well.”

The state cross country meet was split into a two day event this year with the 3A and 4A races on Friday and the 1A and 2A races on Saturday to cut down on crowd size due to COVID-19.