Wednesday at Anamosa, the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team put the finishing touches on a conference championship campaign with a 6-1 win over the Blue Raiders. The victory left the Hawks with a 12-3 overall record, 10-1 in the River Valley Conference, giving No. 6 Mid-Prairie a share of the overall River Valley Conference title with north division champ No. 8 Camanche. The last time the Hawks brought home a share of a league championship was the year 2000, 20 years ago, in the old Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference. Mid-Prairie wrapped up the south division title last week.

After a scoreless first, Mid-Prairie got the first of four doubles on the night from lead-off hitter Karson Grout in the second. He stole third and came home on a sac fly from Kayden Reinier. Mid-Prairie added two more in the third using the same formula, Chris Miller doubled to lead off the inning, stole third and came in on RBI contact from Keegan Gingerich. Brad Tornow then doubled and came home on a Raider error to make it 3-0. In the fourth, Anamosa went to the pen and Sam Wilt walked five straight batters with Will Cavanagh and Chris Miller both earning free passes and coming around to score on wild pitches to make it 5-0. Mid-Prairie would finish their scoring in the sixth when Reinier led off with a walk and came home on a Monte Slabaugh RBI single to right. In the seventh, Reinier on the mound and the Golden Hawk defense locked down the final three outs to secure the championship. After the game, Mid-Prairie senior captains Brad Tornow and Brody Miller talked about what it means to them and the team to bring home the first conference title in two decades. “It’s great because we get to see our years of hard work pay off. Five years at the high school level, more than that going all the way back to 8U. It has been a great time together. It feels good to accomplish this. Hearing coaches and former players talk about some of those great Mid-Prairie teams that weren’t able to win conference, makes you feel pretty good about yourself that you were able to do it.”

Reinier was terrific on the mound for the Hawks, he went all seven innings, scattering four hits and allowed just one unearned run. Monte Slabaugh led Mid-Prairie at the plate going two for four with an RBI. Mid-Prairie will next be in action Tuesday when they open up the district tournament at Paul N. Bailey field in Wellman in the semifinal round against either Williamsburg or West Branch.