After winning a rivalry game Tuesday to open their playoff run, the No. 4 ranked Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team continues their playoff push Saturday against another rival when they welcome the Williamsburg Raiders to Paul N. Bailey Field in Wellman with the district 11 title on the line.
Mid-Prairie comes into the game with an overall record of 18-7 after a 10-0 rout of Iowa City Regina in five innings in Wellman Tuesday. In the victory, the Golden Hawks scored in every inning, pounding out nine hits and taking advantage of four errors. Keegan Gingerich led Mid-Prairie at the plate with a pair of RBI, Kayden Reinier scored three times. Aidan Rath got the win on the mound, going three innings, giving up just one hit, walking three and striking out seven. Mid-Prairie enters today’s game ranked No. 4 in class 2A in the final poll of the year from the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association. They are hitting .352 as a team, second in 2A. They have a staff ERA of 3.72. Individually, Mid-Prairie is led by Aidan Rath hitting .506, he has a class 2A best 12 home runs. He has 41 total hits, 39 driven in, ninth most in 2A and 35 runs scored. On the mound, Rath has a team best five wins with his 5-1 overall record and a Golden Hawk best 0.99 ERA in 28 innings. He has 59 strikeouts on the year. Alex Bean is 3-0 in 21 innings with a 3.61 mark. Keegan Gingerich and Karson Grout are a combined 6-2 with a 4.50 ERA.
Williamsburg is 18-14 on the year. They were 12-10, second in the west division of the WAMAC Conference. The Raiders opened the playoffs Tuesday in Wellman, rolling over Mediapolis 13-0 in five innings. Williamsburg is hitting .315 as a team with a 4.84 ERA. Individually, the Raiders are led by Levi Weldon with his .526 average, fifth in 2A. On the mound, eighth grader Nile Sinn is 5-1 to lead the way with a 2.52 ERA in 41 innings. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Kyle Mullet talked after his team’s win over Regina about what he liked in the performance and what the Hawks need to do to continue to advance. “Whether we’re playing Williamsburg Saturday or a Van Meter at the state tournament, we’ll take time to prepare for specifics like certain pitchers but as a whole we have our game that we play. We try to make that our focus. The biggest part of preparation is hitting every aspect of the game, pitching, fielding and hitting. We ended the season losing one of the two games to Regina and on Tuesday we took care of business because we focused and got better in the things we struggled doing against them the last time around. We made those things a point of emphasis.”
Mid-Prairie has won three of the last four in the series including a 9-8 victory in 2019. The winner of this game claims the class 2A district 11 title and advances to next week’s substate final to play for a bid to the state tournament. You can hear all of the action between the Golden Hawks and the Raiders live tonight on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee pregame show at 6:30 and first pitch presented by the Premier Shed Shop and Champion Metal Supply at 7p.m. from Paul N. Bailey Field in Wellman.