Photo Courtesy of Mid-Prairie Girls Basketball Social Media

It’s tournament time for the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk girls basketball team, and they open regional play Saturday when they host Prairie City Monroe in the Class 3A quarterfinals. The Hawks come in at 15-6 on the year, finishing 9-3, third place in the River Valley Conference. They dropped their regular season finale 75-60 last week at No. 6 Iowa City Regina. For the season, the Hawks are averaging 55 points per game and giving up 43, shooting 38% from the floor, 10th in 3A, 29% from three and 61% at the line with 36 rebounds, 10th most in 3A, 12 assists, 13 steals, ninth in 3A and 16 turnovers per game. Individually, they are led by Landry Pacha with 11 points and eight boards per game. Amara Jones has a team best five assists and four steals per game, both numbers top 10 in Iowa.

Prairie City Monroe is 11-10 this year, they were 8-6, fifth in the Heart of Iowa Conference. In their last game they took down No. 13 South Hamilton 58-46. For the season, they are scoring 45 points per game and giving up 43, shooting 32% from the floor, 25% from three and 57% at the line with 30 boards, 10 assists, 11 steals and 16 turnovers per game. Individually, Tori Lindsay puts up 13 points, seven boards, three assists and three steals per night. This week, Mid-Prairie head girls coach Danny Hershberger talked about his team’s focus and work during their eight day layoff. “One of our biggest strengths is our ability to make adjustments. We have a lot of experience on the court. It’s good to get back in the gym, have some good practices, and be able to sharpen up on some fundamental things we need to work on. We need to make sure we’re ready to go for PCM. They are a .500 team but they have been playing some really good basketball lately. In the postseason, it’s going to be a competitive, hard-fought matchup for us.”

The winner of this game advances to the 3A regional semifinals Wednesday at Vinton-Shellsburg to take on the winner of South Tama and the No. 11 Vikettes. You can hear all of the action between the Golden Hawks and Mustangs live tonight from Tim Grady Gymnasium in Wellman, beginning with the Washington HyVee Pregame Show at 6:30 and tip at 7p.m. on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com.