It was another early night at Paul N. Bailey Field Saturday for the No. 2 ranked Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team as they dispatched the Durant Wildcats 11-0 in five innings in the Class 2A District 9 Championship game. The Golden Hawks opened the game with an offensive onslaught that continued all night, scoring in every inning. They batted around in the first, putting up three runs on hits from Cain Brown, Brady Weber, Dylan Henry, Brock Harland, Joe Hall and Collin Miller with Brown, Weber and Henry scoring and Weber, Henry and Harland having RBI. In the second, they sent eight more to the plate for three more runs when Brown and Harland had hits, Harland had two RBI and Karson Grout, Alex Bean and Henry all crossed home. The Hawks went all the way through the order again in the third, scoring four times on hits from Brown, Grout, Henry and Camron Pickard, runs for Brown, Grout, Bean and Pickard, a pair of RBI for Grout and one each for Henry and Hall. The scoring finished in the fourth with one more run as Grout singled and came in on an error. The Mid-Prairie pitching and defense were equally spectacular as Bean slammed the door on Durant all night from the hill. Against the fourth best hitting team in 2A, he tossed a five inning shut out, giving up just three hits, while his teammates behind him made both the routine and dazzling defensive plays. After the contest, five Golden Hawks joined the KCII postgame show to talk about the win. Hits and RBI leaders Brown, Grout, Henry and Harland talked about their nights at the plate, Bean broke down his game on the mound, and they all discussed the district title.

Brown said, “We knew they were a good hitting team. With Bean on the mound, we knew he would shut them down for us. We just had to put runs across. We just kept moving the lineup along. This feels pretty good but the jobs not finished. We have to keep grinding. We have a great coach. Coach (Kyle Mullet) River Valley Conference Coach of the Year.”

Grout said, “We just wanted to punch them in the mouth right away.”

Harland continued, “Stick to our approach, dominate the fastball, don’t give them a chance.”

Henry said, “You just can’t get satisfied with the early lead, you have to keep going.”

Bean analyzed, “They’re a really good hitting team, and if we wanted to win tonight, I needed to locate fastball on the outside and off-speed to keep them off balance. I wanted to get ground balls and let our defense do the work. I think we played pretty clean baseball. Everyone did our job. We’re not done yet. We have a lot of goals left to accomplish. We’re hungry. We’re comin’.”

Mid-Prairie finished with 13 hits as a team. Eight of the nine in the order had a hit, six of the nine scored a run. Harland drove in a team high three, Grout and Henry had two RBI each. Grout scored three times, Brown, Gentry Bontrager and Henry all touched home twice. The win moves Mid-Prairie to 27-6 on the year and gives the program it’s fourth consecutive district championship. Mid-Prairie advances to Tuesday’s substate final in Ottumwa to meet 25-3 Van Buren, who was a 10-0 winner over Mediapolis Saturday. The winner clinches a bid to the state tournament in Carroll. You can hear all of the action between the Hawks and Warriors Tuesday on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Jessica Yoder and Sarah Bigley with Lepic Kroeger Realtors Pregame Show at 6:30 and first pitch at 7p.m.