Despite the cold weather and no school the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk basketball teams will host Iowa City Regina tonight.

In the girl’s contest the Golden Hawks are on a three game winning streak and are starting to find their niche. Taylor Kurtz is the leading scorer for the Golden Hawks with 13.8 points per game, but as we saw in the Bellevue game Ali Riggan and Alex Rath with their seven points per game can come up big when needed.

No. 2 in 2A Iowa City Regina took their first loss in their last game, when Camanche went to Regina and pulled the 44-42 upset. The Regals have three players over 10 points per game with Jenna Lehman with 17.1 and Nikki Becker and Katie Wick both with 10.3. Hannah Stein can add some pressure as well with 8.1 point per game.

Regina averages 11 more points a game than Mid-Prairie does and shoots five percent better from the floor; if Regina wins they stay in first, and if Mid-Prairie wins they tie up the top spot. This game will kick off at Mid-Prairie tonight at 6:00 P.M.

The boy’s game could have had first place on the line, but with the loss to Bellevue over the weekend the Golden Hawks will have to settle with it just being a big rivalry game.

Mid-Prairie is 4-2 coming into the game and still lean on their top shooters to produce. Nick Stimson with 12 points per game and Dayton Hall with 11.3 scored 32 combined against Bellevue. Outside of those two the Golden Hawks can get production from four others in Spencer Shalla, Christian Johnson, Nathan Faselt and Riley Sieren.

The No. 10 Regals are undefeated so far and bring the 13th highest average scorer in 2A with them. Drew Cook averages 21.7 points per game, but outside of Cook Regina does not have much scoring depth. Phil Arendt averages 12.1 a game and Nathan Stenger has 9.9.

Both teams average over 60 points per game and are shooting 46 percent from the field. The difference is Regina is shooting just 28.8 percent from behind the arc and 50 percent from the free throw line, while Mid-Prairie is shooting 38.5 percent from downtown and almost 60 percent from the charity stripe.

Mid-Prairie head coach Chris Kern says his team needs to be ready for a tough game tonight, and that after a big loss this might be just what the doctor ordered.

“Usually the best thing to do after a game like this is get back on the court and play, and we know how tough Regina is and how ready we are going to have to be to play and If we’re going to redeem ourselves, we need to do that on Tuesday night against Regina,” Kern said. “We better come with everything that we’ve got strapped on, because we know that it is going to be a battle.”

The boy’s game will follow the girls tonight, and you can hear both right here on AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com under radio plus with pregame at 5:30 for the girls and tip-off at 6 P.M. with the boy’s game to follow. The one to count on for today’s local sports coverage is AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com.