The latest edition of the Mid-Prairie and Iowa City Regina girls basketball rivalry Tuesday night lived up to the billing as the #4 ranked Golden Hawks scored a key home conference win over the #15 Regals 55-44. Regina led the entire first half by as many as nine before Mid-Prairie cut the deficit to 18-16 going to the break. Mid-Prairie got their first lead in the first 30 seconds of the half as Mariah Swartzentruber hit one of her three three point goals on the night. Through the rest of the third quarter things were back and forth, until Mid-Prairie found another gear in the final frame. Leading 42-40 with five minutes remaining the Golden Hawks put together a 13-4 run to close out the game and the win. After the game Coach Marc Pennington talked about his team stepping up in the fourth quarter.

“I think we were down four or six, and we took a four points lead and then we were down four and then we had a little spurt,” Pennington said. “Meghan Redlinger had a couple of steals in transition, McArtor had couple of deflections, we had some rebounds, and you could just tell their passes got a little more height on them and I thought their transition defense slowed down a bit so we could get our and run on them a bit.”

Mid-Prairie was led by Mallory McArtor’s 17 points, 13 of those coming in the important fourth quarter. Mariah Swartzentruber added 14. The loss was Regina’s first inside of CVC play. Mid-Prairie is now 10-3 overall and 7-2 in conference.