Sheer exhaustion, and a state title, for Mitzi Evans

Mid-Prairie senior's emotional victory in 800 among the Blue Oval memories

By Paul D. Bowker
Posted 5/26/22

DES MOINES

The race of her life ended with a thud.

That was the sound of Mitzi Evans falling to the ground at Drake Stadium’s legendary Blue Oval last Saturday.

Evans, a senior at …

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Sheer exhaustion, and a state title, for Mitzi Evans

Mid-Prairie senior's emotional victory in 800 among the Blue Oval memories

Posted

DES MOINES

The race of her life ended with a thud.

That was the sound of Mitzi Evans falling to the ground at Drake Stadium’s legendary Blue Oval last Saturday.

Evans, a senior at Mid-Prairie, had used every ounce of energy to bolt toward that finish line ahead of Van Meter’s Clare Kelly.

As Evans lay on the ground, the large crowd assembled for the Iowa State Track & Field Championships at Drake stood up and cheered what they had just witnessed. Evans’ time of 2 minutes, 12.56 seconds flashed on a scoreboard above her and on Drake’s big video board at the other end of the stadium.

She may not have heard a bit of it.

Evans wasn’t able to greet Kelly after the race. This battle to the finish was so physically exhausting, so brutal that their bodies were just done. Total collapse. You want to do something and you just can’t.

“Everything was squeezing, I guess,” Mitzi said later. “My whole body just burned. I wanted to get up, but I didn’t feel well enough to.”

This race had been so fast that Evans beat her personal best by about four seconds. The state record nearly fell. While the pace might slow toward the end of an 800-meter race, Evans and Kelly charged ahead in front of a cheering crowd.

“I was so scared,” Evans said.

But to understand the end of this classic, a race that delivered Evans’ second individual win of the state meet, you have to go back to the beginning.

Evans was the fourth-seeded runner in a field that included Madison Brouwer of Sibley-Ocheyedan, the defending champion, and Kelly, whose best time this season was one-hundredth of a second faster than the 2A state meet record set by Tipton’s Ashley Miller in 2007.

The start of the race was a train wreck.

Evans got elbowed. A pack of girls battled for position as soon as the starter’s gun fired a shot heard ‘round the stadium. It was a NASCAR race.

“I knew that it was probably going to happen because those girls are really fast,” Evans said.

And they were determined.

Memories of a runner-up finish last year fueled Evans. Not this year, she thought. So, faced with a bunch of bodies in front of her in the first turn, Evans bolted for the outside and just blasted past other runners.

“I learned my lesson of that last year,” Evans said. “Don’t wait. If you think you can, then just do it.”

The pace was dizzying. Halfway through, it was Kelly and Evans. Mitzi knew it had to be Evans and Kelly. So she pushed her legs even faster.

“She’s a really great runner,” Evans said of Kelly. “I knew, like, she’s really powerful. My strategy was, I wanted to get around her earlier in the race, or not the last so many meters. She’s one great runner.”

Evans did exactly that, pushing ahead of Kelly in the second and final lap. As she bolted down the backstretch of the 400-meter Blue Oval, Evans glanced up at the videoboard.

“I saw her in the videoboard. She was probably like a meter behind me,” Evans said. “I was like, ‘I need to widen this gap.’ She’s so good.”

Somehow, Evans widened that gap. She ran faster than she ever had in her life, and this is a Golden Hawk who finished second in the 800, third in the 400 and fourth in the 200 at last year’s state meet. She had already won the 400 and helped the Golden Hawks win a fourth consecutive distance medley title at this year’s meet.

Evans charged to the finish line more than half a second ahead of Kelly. And Brouwer? She was another five seconds back.

Then came the collapse.

For a few minutes, the world just stopped.

“My body felt horrible. Everything else, I felt really happy,” Evans said, “I finally did it. I’m so thankful to God because I was praying so hard and I wanted it for a full year, more than that. Since like middle school. I was just so thankful He allowed me to win.”

Mid-Prairie teammate Danielle Hostetler soon joined Evans in the finish area. After finishing fourth, Hostetler looked up and shouted as she saw Evans’ time.

“That was amazing,” Hostetler said. “I finished my race and I looked immediately to see what her time was because I knew it was amazing. I was so happy to see she won and PRd by 4 seconds.”

Evans went on to hit another personal best for a second-place finish in the 200, finishing off a senior year in which she won state team championships in cross country and track and left Des Moines with four individual medals (three firsts and a second).

“Mitzi’s a once-in-a-generation type of kid,” Golden Hawks coach Chris Tyler said. “We’ve had several of those on the team over the last several years. She’s phenomenal at what she does. She’s very dedicated to it. She absolutely trains year-round in very good ways. She’s got a lot of coaches in her corner that get the best out of her.”

But this, the 800 on a Blue Oval day in May, is clearly the one she’ll remember.

“Thankful to God,” she said. “Thanks for giving me such a great weekend. A lot of victories and good times.”

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

Mid-Prairie, track, Mitzi Evans, state championships, Blue Oval