The No. 14 in Class 2A Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team saw their season come to close Tuesday, in the semifinal round of the Class 2A District Tournament, dropping a 2-1 contest to the Mediapolis Bulldogs in Anamosa. The game’s starters, Brady Weber for Mid-Prairie and Lance Ludens for MEPO locked into a pitchers dual early, matching each other zero for zero through the games first five frames, allowing six total baserunners and just two hits to the offenses. Mediapolis broke through in the sixth when Kyler Crow singled with one out, stole his way to third, and came home on a passed ball for the game’s first run. The Bulldogs doubled their lead in the seventh, using a pair of walks to turn up the pressure before a Max Griffin infield hit drove in Will Luttenegger to make it 2-0. Down to their final three outs, the Golden Hawks made a push with Tatem Telfer drawing a lead-off walk and Dylan Henry reaching on an error to put the tying runs in scoring position with no one out. Brock Harland drove a sacrifice fly to center to bring in Telfer and make it 2-1 MEPO. Landry Gingerich smacked a ground ball to third next at bat that was mishandled on the corner, but picked up by shortstop Gannon Gunn to start a rundown between second and third that gave the Bulldogs an important second out. Ludens induced a fly ball to deep left field to end the game with the tying run at first. Golden Hawk head coach Kyle Mullet joined the KCII Sports postgame show to talk about facing Ludens, Weber’s great outing and what he saw as the difference on the night.

Mullet said, “We just voted him (Lance Ludens) on as the first team All-District pitcher. The kid throws strikes. We did a good job putting the ball in play, but that’s what happens. They made their defensive plays. There’s nothing we would change at the plate. We had a game plan for what he was going to do. We expected him to go to the outer half and we worked on his arm slot. That’s exactly what he did and exactly what we worked on. It just wasn’t enough. Then you mix in some mental mistakes, baserunning stuff, fielding errors, you just can’t do those things this time of year. Brady’s (Weber) key was being Brady. That’s what we needed. We needed him to come out and mix pitches up. He’s got his curveball and his off-speed. We knew coming into this game he was a perfect match for Mediapolis. They are a good hitting team and we wanted to keep them balance. We needed someone that could throw strikes. He did his job. He came out and competed. I’m proud of our seniors. They put in a lot of work. We’re all disappointed and I hope we can use this as fuel for next year.”

MEPO out hit the Hawks 3-1. Each team committed two errors. The Bulldogs got hits from Jackson Hutcheson, Crow and Griffin, with Crow and Lutteneger scoring and Griffin getting the only RBI, which enough for Ludens who threw the complete game one hitter with no earned runs, two walks and two Ks. The Hawks lone hit was a single from Bowen Burmeister. Harland had the only RBI and Telfer scored the team’s only run. On the hill, Weber went six, giving up two hits, one unearned run, walking three and striking out nine. Harland worked an inning of relief surrendering a run on two walks and a hit with a K. Mid-Prairie’s season ends at 19-10 with a River Valley Conference South Division regular season championship. The Hawks say goodbye to eight seniors including Bowen Burmeister, Brock Harland, Luke Traetow, Dylan Henry, Joe Hall, Jackson Miller, Kurt Schneider and Carson Pence. Mediapolis is now 21-7 and will play No. 11 Anamosa Saturday for the District 10 Championship.