DES MOINES

The final lap of her final high school race was an emotional battle.

Danielle Hostetler, a Mid-Prairie senior who has won seven state championships in track and cross country, pushed down that final stretch the afternoon of May 18 on Drake Stadium’s famed Blue Oval in the girls 1500 at the Iowa High School Track & Field Championships.

A win was not possible as Tipton’s Noelle Steines took off from the pack.

But fourth place was.

Hostetler pumped her legs and her arms and passed Manson Northwest Webster’s Alyssa Richman and Albia’s McKenna Montgomery.

But this was so much more than a fourth-place finish in her 11th championship final race in four years.

“I was just praying for peace,” she said. “I honestly didn’t really have peace before the race. I had peace once it started. Just the peace from God that passes all understanding.”

And this is the one thing you have to understand about one of the best distance runners in the state who comes from one of the best distance-running families in Iowa. She runs on faith. There isn’t one race that she hasn’t thanked God, hasn’t thanked her teammates, hasn’t counted her blessings.

She doesn’t just talk faith.

She lives it.

“Honestly, I think a lot of people have heard us saying that,” Hostetler said. “And it’s not like a magic charm. It’s just, you know, asking for strength and giving it the best we have.”

As a 14-year-old freshman, Hostetler followed up state cross country titles won by her older sisters, Anna and Marie, and won her own in 2020. Then she did it again. And again.

She showed up at Drake Stadium in May 2021 and won both the 1500 and 3000, beginning an impressive streak of 11 individual finals and five relay races in which she won a medal in all of them. Think about that. All of them.

When the Golden Hawks ran a distance medley relay, Hostetler was always the anchor leg.

After winning three consecutive state titles at 3000 meters, she settled for sixth last Thursday. And she anchored Mid-Prairie’s fourth-place finish in the distance medley and an eighth-place finish in the 4x800.

All those emotions collided on that final stretch in the 1500, her final high school race, her farewell push down the Blue Oval as the PA announcer blasted her name over the stadium speakers and it echoed around the place.

She grabbed that fourth-place finish.

A minute later, she embraced senior teammate Abby Fleming near the finish line. For four years, they were on a cross country team that won three state championships and on a track team that won two state titles and finished runner-up in 2023.

Hugs turned into tears.

“It is huge,” Hostetler said. “I’ve been so blessed to be able to run 16 races at the state track meet and place in each of them. And that’s been through injuries and through all kinds of stuff. So, I’m just so thankful.”

She looked at Abby Fleming, whose father, Aaron, helped her own dad, Mark, coach the Mid-Prairie cross country team for years.

“I’m so thankful that Abby …,” Hostetler said, her voice cracking.

Emotions. And faith.

“We’ve run a lot of races together. We’ve had a lot of fun together,” she said.

And this was so big for Abby Fleming, as well. She ran a personal-best time of 5:06.16. Her last high school race.

“Before the race, I was just repeating to myself, yet not I, but through Christ in me, over and over again,” Fleming said. “That’s kind of what got me through the race and the nerves, through Christ.”

Hostetler’s path to Des Moines began in 2021 with three championships, individual titles in the 1500 and 3000, and a title in the distance medley. Her first three years, she raced in, and medaled, the 800, 1500 and 3000. This year, she swapped the 800 to instead anchor the 4x800 relay.

She never finished lower than eighth place in any race in Des Moines.

And now, it’s on to Liberty.

Danielle is following the footsteps of her sisters to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Anna Hostetler, now an elementary school teacher in Kalona, ran there. Marie, a three-time Iowa state cross country champion and four-time state track individual champion, will run next fall with Danielle on Liberty’s cross country team.

“At first, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go to the same place as my sisters,’” Danielle said. “but then I visited and I loved it.

“Marie (a senior) will be there one year with me.”

They’ll have a lot to talk about. And peace.

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul