When Jamie Stutzman got the baton for the anchor leg of the 4x800-meter relay, there was little space separating the runners from Mid-Prairie, Pekin and Central Decatur on the track during the state-qualifying meet in Eddyville on Thursday. 

Three runners. And only two automatic bids for the state track meet up for grabs. 

Stutzman had just competed in the previous event, the 3200-meter run, and after the first few steps, he was in pain already. 

“Normally 800s don’t really hurt until you get to the second lap, but it was hurting right away,” Stuzman said. “I knew the guy right in front of me. He just ran the two mile as well. I knew he was hurting too and that was my encouragement.”

Stutzman couldn’t catch Pekin, but he pulled away from Central Decatur’s William Gillis on the backstretch to finish second. Stutzman said he was nervous waiting for his turn while Chandler Hershberger, Thaddeus Shetler and Ben Meader ran the first three legs.

“It was a little bit nerve racking, but also really encouraging because everybody ran really fast,” Stutzman said. “If anybody would have run a second or so slower, we probably wouldn’t have made it.”

Stutzman’s finish gave the Golden Hawks their first automatic qualifier of the day. By the end of the night, the Mid-Prairie boys were district champions. And by the time the additional qualifiers were announced, the Golden Hawk boys had qualified for the state track meet in 11 events. 

The Mid-Prairie boys didn’t finish first in many meets this year, but the competition they faced prepared them for a first-place finish in the meet that mattered. 

“The regular season definitely toughens our kids up,” Mid-Prairie coach Dain Jeppson said. “There’s a reason that we try to get our kids exposed to good facilities as well as good talent.”

The Golden Hawks had first-place finishes from the 4x200-meter relay of Clarke Latcham, Caleb Thomas, Will Cavanagh and Cain Brown, as well as Brown in the high jump. 

Brown took the handoff from Cavanagh for the anchor leg of the 4x200 and pulled away to finish a quarter of a second ahead of Williamsburg. 

“That was awesome, it was amazing,” Thomas said about watching Brown cross the finish line in first. “I’m so proud.”

 Thomas said the key was “working together, and just our handoffs in general. We’ve worked on them a lot and that’s what makes us fast.”

Stutzman qualified in the 800-meter run with a second-place finish of 2:04.39, and also the 3200-meter with a third-place finish of 9:58.44.

Thaddeus Shetler had looked at the times from this year and from past years state qualifying meets and thought that a time of 4:46 or under would qualify in the 1600-meter run. 

He finished fourth with a time of 4:41.49, which easily made the cut — ranking 11th among the 2A qualifying times.

“I was definitely feeling tired from my other two events,” said Shetler, who ran personal record splits in both the 4x800 and the distance medley. “So I came back in the mile feeling a bit weighted down, but I just came into the race and ran it.”

The distance medley of Nathan Quinby, Carter Harmsen, Cavanagh and Shetler finished second, as did the shuttle hurdle relay of Latcham, Luke Albright, Meader and Brown. 

Latcham got the Golden Hawks off to a great start with his leadoff leg. 

“The start wasn’t as good as I’d like, but the last three hurdles I really came on and got us in a pretty decent position,” he said. 

Albright said he had trouble with the first hurdle, but then pushed as hard as he could to keep the team’s position. It is the first trip to state for the Golden Hawk senior. 

“This is really important to me,” he said. “I really wanted to go last year and then we couldn’t. So I’m really glad we could make it.”

The 4x100-meter relay of Quinby, Cavanagh, Latcham and Brown was edged by Williamsburg by 1/100th of a second in a photo finish, but still qualified for state. 

Quinby said that working on handoffs was the answer for the 4x100. 

“I think we got riskier with our handoffs,” he said. “Handing off later in the zone, and it made our times a lot faster and it’s really coming together.”

Latcham also qualified with a third-place finish of 57.52 in the 400-meter hurdles. Despite finishing outside the top two, he was pretty confident that he would qualify based on where his time ranked heading into the district meet. Latcham has been to the state meet with relays in the past, but It is the first time that the senior has qualified for an open event.

“Obviously a lot less people can make it in an open event, because there’s only one spot,” Latcham said. 

Out of the 315 2A runners who competed in the 400-meter hurdles over the season, only 18 have run the race in under 58 seconds, placing Latcham in elite company. 

“It feels pretty good,” he said.

The Golden Hawks also got a boost from throwers Carter Harmsen and Josh Wallington, who joined the track & field team just two weeks earlier. The two combined for 14 points in the shot and discus, which proved critical as Mid-Prairie’s district championship came by a 12 point margin over Davis County 111 to 99. 

Wallington finished 11th at the RVC meet a week earlier with a throw of 39-09. On Thursday, the senior who hadn’t thrown the shot put since eight grade, qualified for the state meet with a throw of 42-08.25. 

“One day after lifting I went out to see how far I could throw it and I ended up throwing it pretty far,” Wallington said. “So I thought, I might qualify if I tried it out.” 

Two weeks later, he did. 

The state meet kicks off for the Mid-Prairie boys on Thursday, May 20 at 10:10 a.m. with Jamison Stutzman in the 3200-meter run.