Photo Courtesy of Hudl
The start was a little slow for the No. 2 ranked and undefeated Mid-Prairie boys basketball team Thursday during their playoff opener against Mediapolis. However, when the Hawks hit the gas, the Bulldogs had no answer in a 57-31 Mid-Prairie win. The contest pitted two teams of vastly different tempos and styles, for three quarters, things were played to MEPOs liking, for the final eight minutes it all went Mid-Prairie’s way. Mediapolis led once on the night, 3-2 early, with the Hawks taking the advantage back and finding themselves on top 13-8 after one quarter and on top at half by that same margin 24-19. As they did in the first half, Mediapolis continued to hang around in the third quarter, never letting the Hawks get further than nine points in front before reeling them back in. With just under 90 seconds to go third quarter and the Bulldogs as close as they had been since the opening minutes at 32-29, Mid-Prairie called a timeout, and things wouldn’t be the same the rest of the night.
When action resumed, the Hawks played nearly flawless basketball, going on a 25-2 run that lasted the entire final nine and a half minutes of the game, during which Mediapolis was completely scoreless for more than eight minutes. After the game, Mid-Prairie seniors Ethan Kos and Jack Pennington joined the KCII post game show to talk about the conversation during the time out and what helped the Hawks pull away in the fourth quarter.
Pennington said, “We’ve talked about facing adversity all year. Nearly every game we have faced at least a little bit. The third quarter seems to be our quarter so tonight when they responded to our little run it caught us off guard. We just had to slow down and take a deep breath. I think that timeout really turned things around for us. I think we said in the locker room at halftime we only had three or four assists in that first half and we had 13 or 14 in the second. That’s night and day for us. It was huge to finally get the ball moving and get things right on offense. The points kept coming in that fourth quarter and you don’t even know how to keep track. It was good to be able to get our feet under us and be ready to move on to the next one.”
Kos added, “Definitely the ball movement is what helped us in the second half of the game. Just finding it down low. The fourth quarter was amazing. It was an amazing feeling. I didn’t know the run was so big.”
Mid-Prairie shot 46% in the game with 29 total boards, 15 steals and 12 assists. Carter Harmsen went double double for the Hawks with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Kos was the overall scoring leader with 18, 10 of those coming during the Hawks big fourth quarter run. The win moves Mid-Prairie to 22-0 on the season, breaking the school record from 1991 for longest winning streak and best ever start to a season for the boys program of 21 games each. Mediapolis ends the year at 16-7. The Golden Hawks will play Tuesday night at Mt. Pleasant for the class 2A District 12 Championship. You can hear that game live on AM and FM KCII. Mid-Prairie will meet West Burlington Tuesday. The Falcons were an upset winner 62-57 over Cardinal of Eldon.