Photo Courtesy of Hudl

For the second straight contest, the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk girls basketball team pushed a ranked foe to their limit, but came up short late, this time falling to No. 8 in Class 2A Iowa City Regina 47-46 Thursday in Wellman. After giving No. 15 in Class 3A West Liberty all they wanted in a five point loss Tuesday, the Hawks tested the Regals through the night Thursday. The contest was tied at nine after the first eight minutes, and Mid-Prairie was on top at intermission 24-22. The Regal defense clamped down on the Hawks in the third, keying Regina to a 12-5 run that lasted the entire period, putting them up five going to the fourth. The Hawks trailed by four late with Kylie Reinier knocking down a three point goal with just 10 seconds remaining to bring Mid-Prairie within one and a Regina throw-away seemed to give Mid-Prairie life in the final seconds, but the clock ran out with neither team holding possession. The Hawks were led by Nora Pennington with 14 points. Mid-Prairie head coach Danny Hershberger talked about his standouts against the Regals and what his team can takeaway from the performance. “Nora Pennington was really aggressive on offense for us. She got to the basket. Landry Pacha in the post, scoring on offensive rebound opportunities. Amara Jones led the way with assists again and taking the ball on the offense. It’s never fun to be on the wrong side of a close game and we’ve had two of those this week. We’re excited to have the opportunity to get out against West Branch Friday. Our effort has been outstanding the last couple of nights. I told the girls ‘if we come to play with this kind of effort and energy that we have been playing with this week, we’re going to be winning some of these close games’.”

With the loss, the Hawks are now 2-4 on the year and travel to West Branch Friday.