By Rich Winter

605 Sports

One of the athletes Class A track and field fans will want to watch for this weekend is Parker senior Lexi Even. The sprinter heads to the state meet with Class A’s best time in the 100-meter dash (:12.24), the No. 2 time in the 200-meter dash (:25.77) and is the anchor on Parker’s 400 and 800-meter relays. 

This weekend’s appearance marks the sixth consecutive year Even will be participating in the state track meet. 

“She’s been doing this longer than I’ve been coaching,” Parker track coach Cullen Mack said. “She’s pretty much been a star since day one and as she’s gotten older she’s only gotten better.” 

Rewind the sports clock to May 2017 when Even was in seventh-grade. She placed seventh in the 100-meter dash, eighth in the 200-meter dash and was on the winning 800-meter relay team.

Even has been a mainstay on Parker’s short relays over the years and heads to Sioux Falls with four gold medals in the 800-meter relay, one gold medal in the 400-meter relay and a gold medal in the 100-meter dash from the state meet in 2021. 

“She trains a lot on her own and never really stops,” he said. “Sometimes you have to tell her to take a couple days off.” 

One thing Mack doesn’t have to tell Even before a meet is to get focused.

“You can just see it in her eyes and she turns into a shark before she runs,” Mack said.

Even will be looking for a repeat title in the 100-meter dash and her first-ever 200-meter state title. And she’ll be looking to add more hardware to a Parker trophy case filled with record-setting relay performances from years past. 

Even is a member of Parker’s school record 400-meter relay team (:49.59, 2019) and the record-setting 800-meter relay team (1:44.17, 2018). 

Mack feels like the quartet of Braelyn Berens, Janae Olson, Anna Reiffenberger and Even have a shot at those records this weekend. 

“We have a lot of pride in our relays and these girls want to be on top of the podium,” Mack said. “They really want to break those records and they’ve worked extremely hard and feel like they deserve to run those kinds of times.” 

Even does not hold any individual records at Parker, although Mack says he witnessed a phenomenal effort in the 100-meter dash at their first meet of the year. 

“She ran an :11.69 and we found out they set the course up to only 97 meters,” he said. “We ran it again and she ran a hand-held time of :11.9.”

Even has accumulated 16 medals from state track meets and coach Mack fully expects that number to swell to 20 by Saturday.

Even, the daughter of Stephanie and Jim Even, is a 4.0 student and plans to run track at Mount Marty in the fall.