Photo Courtesy of Hudl/Mid-Prairie Basketball Social Media

Playing on back-to-back nights, on the road, at an arch rival, in an environment that has served as Mid-Prairie’s own personal house of horrors over the years, lots of obstacles were stacked up against the Golden Hawk boys basketball team Tuesday in Iowa City and the black and gold train kept rolling down the tracks with a 55-24 win over Iowa City Regina. The offense took a while to arrive but the defense was right on time, and suffocating. Mid-Prairie opened the game on a 12-2 run that lasted the entire first quarter and ended the half up 26-8. In the second half, Mid-Prairie outscored Regina 29-16 to run away from the Regals with the victory. After the game, head coach Daren Lambert talked about his keys, and key players. “Mentally we are focused in. We know that defense is our calling card and if you show up with defense no matter where you go, you’re going to keep yourself in any game. Great defense leads to easy offense and that is what we stress. We were a little slow to start the game offensively tonight, but great defense held them in check and put us in position to comfortably win tonight.  When we did get it going, we got some high-low looks. Carter (Harmsen) hit some shots up at the high post. Once that pulled out a big man, Ethan (Kos) was able to go to work inside. Also credit to our guards for getting the ball inside and finding them in spots to score.”

Mid-Prairie outrebounded the Regals by 12, forced 20 turnovers and dished out 16 assists. A pair of Hawks got to double figures with Carter Harmsen going double double 18 points 12 rebounds. Ethan Kos added a dozen points. The Mid-Prairie boys improve to 16-0, as Regina drops to 3-13.

In the girls contest, it was Regina who was out of the gates full speed in beating the Golden Hawks 52-31. The Regals put together a 12-4 run that lasted the entire first frame and parlayed that into a 30-16 halftime lead. They outscored the Golden Hawks 22-15 after the break to salt away the contest. The Regals outrebounded the Hawks by 11 and forced 23 Mid-Prairie turnovers. Maddie Nonnenmann led Mid-Prairie with 17 points. The loss snaps the Golden Hawks five game winning streak and drops them to 11-6 on the season.