The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk girls basketball team starts the 2020-21 season tonight when they welcome the Durant Wildcats to Tim Grady Gymnasium in Wellman. Mid-Prairie had a preseason tune-up last week at Pekin where they beat Sigourney 28-15 in a jamboree format. The Golden Hawks were led on the night by Maddie Nonnenmann with 11 points, Maya Lugar added 10. Mid-Prairie was 7-15 a season ago, 7-12 in the River Valley Conference. The 2019-20 Hawks were led by Nonnenmann at 11 points per game her sophomore season. Lugar had the team lead with 101 rebounds in her junior year and Amara Jones finished with a team best 64 assists as a freshman.

Durant was 6-17 last year, 5-14 in the River Valley Conference. The Wildcats were led a season ago by Ally Happ who is back for her junior year after nine points per game. The Wildcats will need to replace senior Allie Poston and her 134 rebounds from last year. Durant brings back assists leader Nicole Brown for her senior season after 33 helpers a year ago. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Danny Hershberger talked about his team’s preseason scrimmage and the keys to the contest with Durant. “First couple minutes of the scrimmage against Sigourney we were nervous. It took a bit to get settled in. We had some uncharacteristic turnovers. Once we started doing our thing, I was really happy. Our offense was really good. Defensively is where we did a really nice job of putting pressure on Sigourney to make plays and forcing them into tough positions, and we capitalized with turnovers. Durant is very aggressive defensively. They are going to put pressure on us so we have to be able to handle that and execute. They have a couple of good guards that can shoot well and create for their teammates. It’s going to be important that we handle pressure and make good decisions offensively while recognizing their top players on defense.”

These two teams split their meetings last year with the Wildcats winning 48-45 in Wellman and Mid-Prairie returning the favor with a 45-32 victory in Durant. You can hear all of the action live tonight on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee pregame show at 6:45 and tip at 7:15 from Tim Grady Gymnasium in Wellman.