The Mid-Prairie softball team starts their season tonight with conference foe West Branch.

The Golden Hawks have a new head coach, and will have a lot of new faces as many girls graduated last year.

Mid-Prairie returns Alex Rath and Amber Kraal, who both hit over .300 in their freshmen season, and Taylor Kurtz returns with her .302 and two homeruns. With Olivia Lugar gone, Kurtz will be the new arm in the circle. Kurtz was 15-4 last year with 55 strikeouts and a 2.14 ERA, not much different than Lugar.

For West Branch, they only graduated one Senior on a heavily freshmen dominated team. The Bears bring back top hitters in Shannon Laing and Mary Baldwin, and top pitchers in Baldwin and Jones. Last year Mid-Prairie defeated West Branch pretty handedly, but the Golden Hawks are almost a brand new team, while West Branch brings everyone back.

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