The Mid-Prairie boys and girls basketball teams split a River Valley Conference double header Tuesday night in Wellman against Camanche. In the girls contest the Lady Indians got enough outside shooting to hold off Mid-Prairie by a 42-26 final score on senior night for the Golden Hawks. The first half was a defensive battle with Mid-Prairie trailing 16-12 at the break. Mid-Prairie answered with a four to nothing run to begin the third quarter tying the game.
As they would all night, Camanche answered with three pointers from Kylie Vogel and Lindsey Grams to stretch the lead again. Grams and Vogel combined for eight three pointers on the night. In the fourth quarter Mid-Prairie would cut the lead to seven, but that’s as close as the Hawks would get as Camanche hit free throws down the stretch and Mid-Prairie stayed cold from the floor. Following the game Head Coach Stephen Bender talked about his teams play.
“We were just a step slow in our zone tonight. When you are playing a team that has two great three-point threats like that, you can’t be slow, and we were slow getting to them,” Bender said. “Part of that is four games in five days, along with two really long bus rides in there, going to Cascade and Northeast. I thought out effort was there, we were just a step slow.”
The Golden Hawks were led by nine points from Alex Rath. With the loss Mid-Prairie is now 10-9 overall and 10-7 in conference. They will open up regional play Saturday night against Central Lee in Donnelson.
In the boys game, Mid-Prairie built a lead as large as 30 before coasting to a 64-49 conference win. The game was tied at 10 with 90 seconds left in the first quarter when Mid-Prairie exploded for a 32-6 run that ended the first half, including scoring 17 straight during the stretch. Following the game Head Coach Chris Kern talked about his team’s first half run.
“I’ve been telling my guys all year, ‘One of these night, we’re going to have that game,’ and it all came together, we were hustling for loose balls, we were getting the rebounds, doing all of the little things, and it is amazing when you do all of the little things how the big things come out,” Kern said.
Leading 42-16 at the half, Mid-Prairie opened the second half with an 8-4 burst to keep momentum. The Hawks spent the second half running the clock and cleared the bench in the win. Mid-Prairie had four players in double figures led by Wyatt Cady and his career high 17 points. Dayton Hall added 15, Nick Stimson had 12, all in the first half and C.J. Johnson finished with 10. Mid-Prairie climbs back to the .500 mark with the win at 10-10 and will travel to Monticello for a makeup game Friday night.