The Golden Hawk softball team traveled to Iowa City Wednesday night to take on No. 4 in Class 2A Iowa City Regina, and rattled the Regals cage early by taking a lead, but it was Regina that finished a 6-1 River Valley Conference win. The Hawks put the pressure on the home team in their first at-bat, loading the bases with nobody out against Emma Nibaur. Mid-Prairie got a run when Madeline Schrader reached on an infield knock to score Dakota Mitchell and make it 1-0. Regina countered with a pair in the bottom half on a hit, walk and a Golden Hawk error. The score stayed that way into the fourth when Mid-Prairie loaded the bases with no outs for the second time. They were turned away scoreless by Nibaur and a pair of tremendous defensive plays and then the Regals cashed in their own chance in the bottom half, scoring once on a pair of hits to make it 3-1. Regina then strung together four hits in the fifth to score three and push their lead to 6-1 and finish the win. After the game, Golden Hawk head coach Amy Hartsock-Williams talked about her team at the plate and their ability to manufacture chances, and how big the momentum swing was in the fourth. “It was important for us to come out that way early. It showed us that we can score against this team. We can hit these girls and play with these girls on a ranked team. After that we loaded the bases again later in the game. No fear ladies! We scored right away, let’s keep scoring. We forced them to play the ball and that’s all you can ask. We just needed a couple more timely hits and this is a completely different ballgame.”

The Hawks ended with nine hits, two each from Mitchell, Gabi Robertson, Brittney Kinsinger, and Schrader. Sydney Knebel threw all six innings for Mid-Prairie, giving up nine hits, three earned runs, walking three and punching out one. The Hawks are now 4-7 on the year and travel to North Cedar for an RVC matchup Thursday.