The top ten Mid-Prairie boys and girls cross country teams braved the weather conditions Saturday in Pella to turn in stellar performances against the best in the region during the 17th annual Heartland Classic. The No. 2 in Class 2A Mid-Prairie girls finished 18th of 31 teams with their overall score of 398. The Pella Dutch won the meet with their score of 143. Top performer for the Hawks was reigning 2A state champion Danielle Hostetler in fifth with her time of 19:08. Individual champion was Paityn Noe of Ballard with her meet record 17:28. Other Golden Hawk finishers included Abby Fleming 55th, Phoebe Shetler 84th, Greta Sieren 125th, Annika Poll 129th, Dessa Poll 153rd and Amara Jones 167th.

The No. 8 in Class 2A Mid-Prairie boys were 30th of 37 schools with their score of 859. Des Moines Dowling Catholic won the meet with 120 points. Emmett Swarztentruber had the top Mid-Prairie finish, taking 116th in 17:41. Jackson Heidesch of Dowling was meet champion in 15:24. Other finishes for the Golden Hawks included Jayse Yoder 173rd, Preston Yutzy 176th, Nathan Wallington 185th, Blake Creed 209th, Daniel Rodgers 215th and Jesse Stultz 216th. Fleming and Wallington spoke with KCII Sports after the race about their days.

Fleming said, “I ran my second mile, just about as fast as my first mile so that was really good. Today it was important to push through the whole race and not settle. I have settled a lot in my past races. I think this time though I did a pretty good job of staying up.”

Wallington added “I hit the goal for the first two miles, but after the two mile I started to slow down. I was just trying to stay as close to my teammates as possible. If I’m up there with them, that’s pushing them harder and they get a better time, and it also helps me to push and get a better time.”

The Golden Hawk cross country team is off until September 26th when they run in Iowa City.