The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk boys basketball team returns to the floor tonight when they host Northeast Goose Lake in River Valley Conference action. The Hawks went into the holiday break with a 3-1 overall record, winners of three in a row, but due to COVID concerns, haven’t seen live action since taking down North Cedar 71-55 on December 11th. Junior Carter Harmsen leads the way for Mid-Prairie, scoring 25.5 points per game, second best in class 2A. He also leads the Hawks on the glass with 35 boards this season, eighth most in the River Valley Conference. Jack Pennington leads the Golden Hawks with 6.3 assists per game, third best in the state in 2A, for a Mid-Prairie team that puts up 17 helpers per game, sixth best in Iowa in 2A.

Northeast Goose Lake comes into the night with a mark of 2-1 on the year. The Rebels have been off since December 5th due to COVID concerns. Last time out they beat Calamus-Wheatland 54-38. For the year, the Rebels are led by Judd Swanton who leads the River Valley North at 21 points per game. He averages a double double, pulling down 11 boards per game, fifth most in 2A. Hayden Lee leads the Rebels at three assists per game. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Daren Lambert talked about the second half of the year and the Rebels. “I think the biggest thing that we are going to keep hitting on going into the second part of the season is growing defensively as a team. Only playing four games so far we have ground we can make up in that area and we are going to face some pretty good teams on short turnarounds. We have shown that we can score but in the third or fourth game in a week, the offense might not be there so we need to play well on that end of the floor. We also need to grow offensively. In the five years I have been here this is the best offensive team that we have had and I think that comes from their high basketball IQ and ability to share the basketball. Northeast Goose Lake is coming in with a situation similar to us with a limited number of games. We expect them to play zone. They have a good post player on the inside. The most important things for us to do coming out of the long break are the little things. Boxing out, closing out with a high hand. Matching up in transition on defense. Pushing the tempo on offense and then being patient if we see their zone.”

These teams met on January 3rd of last year with the Rebels taking a 51-38 win. Northeast has won all seven matchups all-time between the two schools. You can hear all of the action live between the Golden Hawks and the Rebels on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee pregame show at 7p.m. and tip-off at 7:30 from Tim Grady Gymnasium in Wellman.