The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk boys basketball team did work early, and hung on late Thursday at HyVee Arena in Kansas City in the inaugural 12 Courts of Christmas Event. The Hawks stayed perfect on the year with a 50-43 win over Kansas City suburb squad Raytown South. The Cardinals were the bigger team coming in numbers-wise, with a school enrollment of nearly 1000 students from a town of 30,000, and in stature, with a front line that had several players 6’5″ or better. Despite the numbers being stacked against them, the Golden Hawks were scrappy and smart out of the gate, jumping to a 5-0 lead. Raytown would tie the game at five a few minutes later with their own small run. Mid-Prairie would never trail or let the Cardinals draw even again on the day.

A 14-5 Mid-Prairie sprint that lasted the entire second quarter sent the Hawks to the locker room with a 29-15 lead. A quick 8-0 burst out of the break moved the lead to 22 at 37-15 before a Raytown timeout refocused the Cardinals. Over the next 12 minutes, they would turn Mid-Prairie over 12 times and allow the Golden Hawks just one field goal the rest of the way, in cutting the lead to 39-28 going to the fourth, and eventually trimming it to three in the final four minutes. The lone field goal Raytown allowed however, was a big one, in the middle of the storm that was the Cardinals 21-2 run, the Hawks got an offensive rebound tip out to Jack Pennington on the wing who calmly, and cold-bloodedly drilled the three. Mid-Prairie put the game on ice at the free throw line, sinking eight freebies in the fourth. After the game, head coach Daren Lambert talked about the experience, key players, and what his team can take from the win. “Five points is all we gave up in the second quarter. We were doing a great job of getting stops, coming down getting good offensive possessions and hitting tough shots. We needed every bit of that 22-5 run. They made it nice and close at the end. Overall pleased with how we responded. We called a couple of timeouts, we had to respond and regroup. It was kind of a mess there for a little bit and we haven’t seen something like that this year. As a coach, you do like to have those moments because you learn so much from them, and get the win. It was a physical game, we had to play through contact and play with a lead. When they came back the momentum was all on their side. Senior leadership was key. We have tough guys. We saw that on Tuesday with the road win at Northeast and we saw it again today.”

The turnover battle ended even at 15 for both sides and Mid-Prairie outrebounded the bigger Cardinals by five. Carter Harmsen had a game high 16 points. Alex Bean had nine and Shawn Dodds led the Golden Hawk bench mob with eight. With the win, the Golden Hawks entered the Christmas break with a perfect 7-0 record. They will be back on the court January 4th when they host the Wilton Beavers.