Photo Courtesy of MP Sports Social Media (Nicole Miller)

The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk girls basketball team has a bounce-back on their mind tonight when they travel to Anamosa for their first River Valley Conference road trip of the season. The Hawks are 1-1 on the year after a 66-45 loss Tuesday in Wellman to No. 3 in Class 3A Benton. Mid-Prairie was led in the loss by Nora Pennington and Callie Huber with 12 points each. Through two games, the Hawks are scoring 64 points per game and giving up 53, shooting 44% from the floor, 30% from deep and 40% at the  line to go with 39 boards, 17 assists, 20 steals and 24 turnovers per game. Individually, Mid-Prairie is led by Huber at 13 points per game with Pennington right behind at 12 per night and Jovi Evans scoring 11. Huber’s nine rebounds are best on the team as are Pennington’s five steals and Evans three assists.

Anamosa is 0-1 this season, falling at Wilton Tuesday 49-35, despite a seven point, seven board performance from Sophie Sander. The Blue Raiders shot 31% from the floor, 27% from three and 39% at the line. They were outrebounded by 13 and committed 19 turnovers. Tuesday, Mid-Prairie head coach Danny Hershberger joined the KCII postgame show live, following his team’s loss to the top five Bobcats to talk about the areas emphasis for improvement for his team in the early season. Hershberger said, “We’ve been working on handling pressure and getting open in our offense. That’s something we need to continue to work on. Be tougher when we have the ball. Too many times we let passes get away from us. We need to go back and help the person with the ball. Those are things that some of our younger players need to learn from (the game against Benton). Rebounding also, we knew (Benton) was a big rebounding team. A lot of times we gave up an offensive rebound either for a putback, or an and one, or they’d kick it out and hit a three. If you want to beat good teams, you have to take care of those things.”

The Golden Hawks are 5-0 in the last five seasons against Anamosa including a 69-32 win a season ago. Action starts tonight at 6p.m. at Anamosa High School.