The West Branch Bears boys and girls basketball team took both ends of a River Valley Conference doubleheader Friday night in Wellman over the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks.

The girls game was a defensive slugfest that West Branch won 33-22. The Hawks have been riddled with illness and injury for more than a week and played this game with a shortened rotation, as leading scorer Addie Rath was unavailable due to illness and second leading scorer Anna Vilovchik was dealing with illness and not 100%. Defenses dominated the first six minutes but West Branch ended the first quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 10-3 lead. That would turn into a 15-0 run for the Bears that saw them take a 17-3 lead before the Hawks could break their 9 minute drought from the field. The Hawks started to chip away, ending the half on a 9-0 run, to trail just 17-12 at the half. Mid-Prairie would continue their run after the break, ending it at 17-4 with a 20-19 on a Colby Rourke layup. From there, Mid-Prairie would end the game on a 10 minute drought from the floor offensively as they watched the Bears finish out the win with a 12-2 run in the fourth quarter. Shae Becker led the Hawks with seven points. With the loss, Mid-Prairie is now 9-3 on the year.

In the boys contest, West Branch grabbed momentum early with a big run and rode that to a convincing 71-34 win. Mid-Prairie led early 2-1 but West Branch went on a 9-1 run to take control at 10-3. The run eventually became 43-11 into the second half as the Hawks trailed 44-15 at the break and the Bears turned on the continuous clock on the first possession of the fourth quarter. West Branch got the win behind hot perimeter shooting, knocking down 12 three point goals. Cale Robertson and Chaz Patterson led Mid-Prairie with six points each. The Golden Hawks are now 2-10 on the year. The Mid-Prairie boys and girls will both be in action today when they travel to Bellevue.