The #9 ranked Mid-Prairie girls suffered their second straight Cedar Valley Conference loss Friday
night at Iowa City Regina 54-51. In a game heard on KCIIradio.com, Mid-Prairie experienced déjà
vu in the first half as they got out to a four point lead behind good shooting from Erika Murphy and
Meghan Redlinger only to see Regina erase the advantage and open up an eleven point lead of their
own going to the halftime break. Following the game Coach Marc Pennington talked about his team’s
defense leading to Regina’s early lead.

“One thing we tried to do was get a better start offensively because we struggled out of the gate, unfortunately we left our defense in the locker room because we didn’t guard anybody in the first 12-16 minutes of the game,” Pennington said. “While we scored okay we didn’t guard anybody, I thought we executed our half court plays good, got good looks, shots went down, but we couldn’t guard our own shadow in the first half, so I don’t know what it was, but we have to fix it though, because that’s two games in a row we dug ourselves a hole, and against good teams you cannot do that. We’re still learning a little bit here and there, but I was disappointed with how we played defense in the first half.”

Out of halftime Mid-Prairie would trail by as many as 16 in the third quarter but would cut it to 11
going to the final period. The Golden Hawks opened the fourth by dialing up the defense and holding
the Regals scoreless for the first five minutes while going on a 10-0 run of their own to cut the lead to
one. As the teams battled late in the tight ballgame the turning point came when Hannah Seaman came
up with a lay up to stretch the Regal lead back to three. On the play it seemed as though a traveling call
had been missed and through his reaction Pennington was assessed a technical foul. Regina would not
relinquish the lead from that point as they stepped to the line and knocked down enough free throws to
keep the Hawks at bay.

In the win Regina was led by 21 points from Jenna Lehman, Mid-Prairie had 16 points
from Erika Murphy, 15 from Mariah Swartzentruber and 10 from Mallory McArtor. The Golden
Hawks are now 2-2 on the year and 1-2 in the Cedar Valley Conference. They will next be in action
Tuesday night at home against Tipton. You can hear all of the action on KCII with pregame at 5:30
and tipoff at 6PM live from Wellman.