McDonald’s Mitchell makes a return appearance

Being named Spring Athlete of the Year for track apparently wasn’t enough for McDonald sophomore Malina Mitchell. She also was The Vindicator’s cross country selection last fall.

“It’s a great accomplishment,” Mitchell said. “It just shows that hard work pays off. Without my coaches and teammates’ support I couldn’t have accomplished the things I’ve accomplished the past two seasons.”

Mitchell dramatically won McDonald the 4x400 relay in Columbus, finding that little something extra down the final stretch, passing Minster’s anchor and taking the gold.

“I knew it was going to be an intense race,” Mitchell said. “The anchor legs always have some fast girls and my teammate Abbie Matig was handing off pretty close to Minster. So I knew it was going to be tough and I knew St. Thomas Aquinas, too, was coming. I just knew I had to give it my all and down the home stretch I just tried to put it in that extra gear.”

Mitchell also competed at state in the 1600, where she came in sixth. But she said she trained to compete in both the 1600 and 4x400 all year long. It paid off at the biggest moment.

“I’ve kind of gotten used to running the 1600 and then in between relax and put my legs up at our camp and then get ready for the 4x400,” Mitchell said. “So I feel like me doing it throughout the season really helped.”

The 4x400 relay team finished third in arguably the toughest region in the state. So with a little improvement, Mitchell thought something big could happen.

“Our region is really competitive,” Mitchell said. “I think with our time we would’ve won all the other regions so we knew going in there was a chance to do something special. But it turned out better than we could ever imagine.”

While it’s too early to know where she’s going to go to college, Mitchell knows she wants to run.

“I definitely want to run both [track and cross country] in college,” Mitchell said. “That’s been a goal of mine forever. I’d like to take that next step in my career.”

— Charles Grove, The Vindicator