Photo Courtesy of Mid-Prairie Baseball Social Media
The stage was set Friday night for the No. 2 in Class 2A Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team. Senior Night in front of a packed crowd at Paul N. Bailey Field in Wellman. A win to clinch a share of the River Valley Conference title. The Hawks took that script and delivered blockbuster performances up and down the line-up, complete with a Hollywood ending, scoring a 12-11 walk-off win over Durant, and a piece of the RVC prize. The drama came early for the black and gold, as they fell behind 6-0 after two innings. From there, Mid-Prairie starter Brock Harland settled in on the mound to give his team five frames, and the offense started to chip away. They scored twice in the bottom of three, using a pair of Durant errors and an RBI sac fly from Karson Grout to score Cain Brown and Camron Pickard to get within 6-2. Things officially swung the Golden Hawks way in the fourth. Mid-Prairie sent 11 men to the plate and scored six times. The biggest swing of the night, a Brown no-doubt grand slam blast to right to tie it. Alex Bean and Brady Weber connected on RBI hits to put Mid-Prairie ahead 8-6. Two more went on the board in the fifth with Collin Miller and Pickard coming home on RBI knocks for Grout and Landry Gingerich to make it 10 straight runs for the Hawks and a lead of four. The Wildcats got one back in the sixth to climb within three and the Hawks returned the favor in the bottom half with Blake Swart coming around to score. Up 11-7 going to the final frame, it was Durant’s turn for drama. The Wildcats found the four runs they needed during a frantic rally that saw them down to their final strike on multiple occasions. The score stood at 11 all going to the bottom of the seventh and it was time for a Mid-Prairie encore. Bean walked to start it and moved to second on a balk. With one out, Weber delivered a base hit up the middle, Bean got the green light at third and headed home, the ball arrived at the plate first, Garrett Hollenbeck, the Wildcat catcher, couldn’t come up with the play cleanly. Bean slid in safely, setting off a celebration that stretched all the way out to left field as the gold clad Hawks poured out of the dugout and mobbed him and Weber. Live on the KCII postgame show, the five Mid-Prairie seniors, Jackson Zahradnek, Camron Pickard, Cain Brown, Collin Miller and Alex Bean talked about the total team effort in collecting the victory, how it feels to be conference champs, the grand slam and the final play.
They summarized it like this, “We just stayed relaxed, went out there and competed and had fun. Not giving up an at bat. Battling with two strikes. Putting the ball in play and doing our job. We chipped away and got the win. The grand slam was a big momentum shifter. It got the team up and out of their seats. It was huge. I thought I was going to be out (on the last play) but he dropped the ball and I was safe. I was just looking for a ground ball to get through, hustle as hard as I can and score. The conference title feels good, but the job’s not finished. We have to keep grinding. We would really like to continue our win streak, beat these guys two more times at their place and then in the postseason we have some big games ahead of us.”
Durant out hit the Hawks 15-12. Seven of the nine in the Mid-Prairie order had at least one hit, six of the nine scored. Brown led the way with four RBI, the grand slam, two hits and a pair scored. Weber drove in two on two hits. Grout had a pair of RBI. Pickard reached four times and scored three. Gentry Bontrager collected the win for the Hawks after working the seventh. Durant was led by Conner Schwartz three for five night with four RBI. Senior Nolan DeLong took the loss on the mound. The victory is the 20th this year for the Golden Hawks, moving them to 20-6. They are 14-1 in the River Valley and own at least a share of the title, their third in the last four years. Durant falls to 13-9 with the loss. Mid-Prairie can clinch the outright title next week with a win in any of their three remaining RVC games which include a doubleheader on the road against the Wildcats and a makeup game with Tipton.