The battle for the county moves over to the softball diamond tonight when No. 12 in 4A Washington travels to No. 2 in 3A Mid-Prairie for a softball double header.

The Demons have seen this scenario before, in fact the setup to this game is exactly what happened midway through the season last year, coming off a split with Fairfield, Washington played Mid-Prairie and was swept at home, and to make things even more uncanny, Mid-Prairie lost to Durant, and just swept North Cedar, the exact same thing that Mid-Prairie did last year. The real only difference tonight is that this game will be at Mid-Prairie.

Washington is 13-5 overall this season, and is hitting .345 as a team. A big part of that is the top of the lineup for Washington with their 1-4 hitters hitting a combined .439 in Kaitlin Buchholz, the leading hitter, Sammy Ellingson, Ashley Rausch and Maddie Bohr. Rausch leads the team in RBI’s as well with 21.

On the pitching staff, Maddie Bohr still leads the way with a 4-0 record and a 1.68 ERA, but Rausch has started to find her stride with an 8-5 record, 2.25 ERA and 54 strikeouts.

The Golden Hawks are 13-5 on the year and are hitting .326 as a team. They are led by the bat of Felicia Schulty who is hitting .522, with 14 RBI’s and three home runs, the next closest is Taylor Kurtz with a .478 average and 11 RBI’s and one homer.

Pitching wise, it is the arm of Olivia Lugar that carries the work, with a 8-2 record, 2.00 ERA and 41 strikeouts. Taylor Kurtz is the second pitcher with a 7-2 record, 2.59 ERA and 19 K’s.

Mid-Prairie head coach Justin Lutjen said he knows that last year was a couple of good games his team played, but this year is different, and Washington can still put runs on the board.

“I know we played two great games against a good Washington team last year and came away with two wins, but you know they’re a great team too, and we just have to go out and take care of our own business, have good at-bats and play solid defense, and like I said we know they have a good team, they can swing the bats and put up runs so it’s always going to be a good game with Washington,” Lutjen said.

Washington and Mid-Prairie will play a double header tonight, and you can hear it right here on AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com under radio plus with pregame of game one at 5 and first pitch at 5:30, and the pregame of game two to follow. The one to count on for today’s local sports coverage is AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com.