The No. 5 in Class 2A Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team beat the Tipton Tigers, but lost the race with Mother Nature Tuesday. In a River Valley Conference road doubleheader, the Hawks scored an 11-4 win in game one, but play in game two was halted early due to weather. In the early contest, it was Tipton that got on the board first with a run in the second. Down 1-0, the Hawks reversed their fortunes with a four run rally in the fourth to take lead they wouldn’t give up the rest of the night. They added on two more in the fifth to go up 6-1. Tipton would tighten things late with three in the sixth, but the Golden Hawks added five insurance runs in the seventh to put the game away. Mid-Prairie piled up 10 hits, three for extra bases, had 10 RBI and feasted on 13 free baserunners between walks and hit batters issued by Tiger pitching. Individual leaders at the plate included Bowen Burmeister with three hits and an RBI. Tatem Telfer drove in three on two hits while scoring twice. Brock Harland and Luke Traetow each drove in a pair. Dylan Henry scored twice. After the game, Harland, Telfer and Traetow joined KCII Sports to talk about their approach at the plate and RBI hits.
Harland said, “It was about attacking the fastball. That’s something that coach Mullet has told us to do and that’s what we’ve looked for, especially early in counts. I got ahead there and knew a fastball was coming. I knew I needed to be on time and have a good swing path and I lined one through the left side and ended up with two RBIs.”
Telfer continued, “Being patient in counts. Tonight the umps zone was pretty small so, we want to be patient and get our pitch to hit. I had the 3-0 green light. I stayed back on a pitch and was able to hit it hard.”
Traetow added, “I had the first pitch. I was thinking just catch a barrel here since a lot of my hits are just bloop hits, and that’s what I did!”
Brady Weber got the win on the mound, working five innings, allowing four hits, one run and striking out four.
In game two, the Hawks unleashed just before the weather, blasting the Tigers with seven runs in just two thirds of an inning before thunderstorms did the same to the baseball complex. Due to the deluge, the umpires put the game into a weather delay and ultimately determined the surface was unplayable. The game will restart Wednesday, where it left off on Tuesday, with Mid-Prairie hitting in the top of the first, leading 7-0 with two outs and men on base. The game is schedule as part of a JV/Varsity doubleheader tonight at Paul N. Bailey Field in Wellman with the junior varsity game at varsity and varsity at 7p.m. You can hear that game live on AM 1380, FM 102.5, the KCII2 App and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Mid-Prairie baseball pregame show at 6:30p.m.