The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk boys and girls cross country teams went to work over the weekend, traveling to the Monticello Invitational. The No. 1 ranked Mid-Prairie girls brought home the team championship with an overall score of 60 points, Monticello was second on their home course with 74. Mid-Prairie got the team win, despite being without their number two runner by the numbers Mitzi Evans. The Hawks were led by individual champion Danielle Hostetler. The sophomore ran a gutsy race, less than 100% from workouts during the week, No. 1 in 2A Hostetler ran 17:56, tying a course record held by her older sister Marie, while holding off No. 1 in class 1A Noelle Steines from Calamus Wheatland with her time of 18:00. After the day, Hostetler talked about the race. “I knew that there was a girl that was supposed to be close to me so I would likely be racing her, and I knew that I could beat her. I’m glad she was here, it made me tougher and pushed me a lot. My sister will probably say that she beat me by .0001 something. When I crossed the finish line it felt good, I was tired but I knew I had given it everything. This team is a special group of girls and they were tough.”

Other finishers for the Golden Hawks included Sydney Yoder sixth in 19:53, Phoebe Shetler 13th in 20:19, Jaden Yoder 14th in 20:34, Abby Fleming 26th in 21:21, Annika Poll 38th in 22:15 and Amara Jones 51st in 23:17.

The Mid-Prairie boys were fifth of 14 teams with 143 points, Tipton won the meet with 52 points. Mid-Prairie was led by Thaddeus Shetler and his third place finish in 16:41. He spoke after the race about the day. “In the last few races I have run, I really struggled my second and third miles. Today I was hoping to pace them better. Looking at the times this week for the top two runners here they both had minute PRs on me so I knew it would be tough to stick with them. I’m trying to gradually go into this season to peak at the end. I was really impressed by our whole team today.”

Other finishers for the Hawks included Chandler Hershberger 20th in 18:08, Emmett Swartzentruber 31st in 18:34, Jayse Yoder in 44th in 19:10, Preston Yutzy 45th in 19:12, Robert Nagy 50th in 19:17 and Sam Yoder 60th in 19:42.