It was Mid-Prairie early, often and all night Friday as the Golden Hawks posted an impressive 9-0 regional semifinal win over Prairie City Monroe in Kalona. The Golden Hawks scored in the first with an RBI double by Mallory McArtor and followed that up with three more in the fourth with Emmie Leinen recording the big hit in the inning. With the lead already at 4-0 Mid-Prairie kept their foot on the gas with two more in the fifth led by RBI from Amber Kral and Maddy Kaalberg  and put things away with three tallies in the sixth on RBI from Kaitlyn Kaalberg and McArtor. Following the game Head Coach Justin Lutjen talked about his team cashing in on scoring chances and putting pressure on the opposition.

“Doesn’t matter who we play, we take care of our own business,” Lutjen said. “We’ll probably hit the cages. take a few more swings and work on our discipline at the plate. Moving forward we have a great opportunity and we’re looking forward to it, it doesn’t matter who we play, it matter whats we do, and if we show up and we’re on we’re tough to beat.”

Also strong was the Mid-Prairie pitching. Olivia Lugar took a no-hit bid into the fifth inning and posted the complete hit three game shut out. After the game Lugar talked about her repertoire of pitches and what her game plan is in the circle.

“I’ve been working a lot on just keeping pitches in the zone, even if they move., try to keep them in the zone for strikes and try to get ahead in the count because if I can get ahead in the count I can move the ball around more and be more confident with those pitches,” Lugar said. “We knew they had a lot of right handed hitters and only one slapper, so I went in tonight just hoping to throw hard and throw strikes and our defense moved tonight that they’re just awesome and it was good backup, if I just throw strikes I am always confident that our defense will have my back.”

Mid-Prairie did damage up and down the line up with seven players recording hits. With the win Mid-Prairie advances to the regional final for the fourth straight year and is just one game away from making the state tournament in Ft. Dodge for the third straight season. Next up for the #4 Golden Hawks is a Monday match up in Oskaloosa with #8 Clarke of Osceola who was a 3-0 winner over Centerville. You can hear all of the action live on AM and FM KCII with pregame at 6:45 and first pitch at 7PM Monday night.