Photos Courtesy of MP Sports Social Media (Nicole Miller)
The Mid-Prairie boys and girls basketball teams gave their brooms a workout on the road Tuesday night, sweeping the West Liberty Comets in both ends of a River Valley Conference doubleheader. The boys used a long ball barrage to record the road win 69-51. Mid-Prairie was up 11-10 after one and started the second quarter with back-to-back threes to get up by seven. The Comets closed within one when Ryker Dengler banked in a three at the buzzer to make it 23-22 Hawks at half. West Liberty took their first lead of the night in the opening seconds of the third, only to see Mid-Prairie rattle of 18 straight points in three minutes, on six threes, three of them from Ace Peck. The Hawks led 47-35 going to the fourth. The Comets would again tighten things up, cutting the Mid-Prairie lead to four, before the Hawks put together a 15-1 run to decide the game. The Golden Hawks hit 13 threes in total, eight in the second half, and out rebounded the Comets by nine to offset losing the turnover battle 27-13. Mid-Prairie had four in double figures led by Ace Peck’s 21 points including six three point goals. Bryce and Dylan Henry each had 13 points and Brady Weber 10. Mid-Prairie held Jayce McHugh, a top 10 scorer in 2A to just two field goals. After the game, Peck joined the KCII postgame show, to talk about his and the team’s offensive performance. Peck said, “Coach says, attack gaps and kick out. We did that tonight. We know we’re good shooters. We have to keep doing that. Tonight, it felt good. (When it’s in the air) I was looking, hoping it would go in. You just have to keep shooting if you’re open.”
Mid-Prairie has now won back-to-back games and stands at 2-1 on the season, West Liberty is 0-3.
The Golden Hawks were a wire-to-wire winner in the girls contest 61-33. Mid-Prairie started the game on an 18-5 run that spanned the entire first quarter, then put the Comets through a four minute drought in the second quarter to win the frame 20-6, leading 38-11 at half. A six and a half minute dry spell courtesy of the Golden Hawk defense awaited the Comets out of the break as the Golden Hawk lead grew as large as 33 on multiple occasions as Mid-Prairie put things away early. The Golden Hawks outrebounded the Comets 41-22. They dished out 13 assists, had 10 steals and won the turnover battle 28-12. The Golden Hawk defense hassled Pearson Hall, the state’s leading scorer, averaging 27 points per game, holding her to just one field goal. Callie Huber led the way for the Hawks with 12 points and Jovi Evans added 10. On the postgame show, Mid-Prairie head coach Danny Hershberger highlighted his team’s defensive effort to hold down Hall and spur their offense, and their work on the glass. Hershberger said, “We felt like tonight we had to do a much better job defensively than we have the last couple of times out. That starts with communication. I thought we did a much better job of that. We wanted to be aware of where Pearson Hall was all the time, knowing that she can score from anywhere on the floor. We did a great job defensively of being active with our hands, forcing them into turnovers, and those steals led to run outs. We knew we were going to be the taller team tonight so we wanted to do everything we could to take advantage of that. Our post players did a good job cleaning up on the offensive glass and getting put backs.”
With the win, the Golden Hawks are 3-2 on the season, West Liberty falls to 1-3. Both Mid-Prairie teams travel to West Branch Friday for a doubleheader. You can hear those games live on KCII beginning with pregame at 5:30p.m.