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Two Washington County softball rivals were in a tussle in Kalona on Wednesday with host Mid-Prairie rallying for a come from behind 10-5 win over Washington. 

As heard on KCII, both teams put plenty of traffic on the base paths in the early innings, but both pitchers worked out of jams for a 1-1 tie after two. Bella Salazar and Ella Greiner opened the third with singles for the Demons and RyLee Fishback brought the fireworks with a three run blast to left center to open a 4-1 advantage. The Golden Hawk bats that finished with 16 hits went to work in the fifth when a 5-3 deficit turned into a 6-5 lead on a bases clearing triple from Sophie Miller. The black and gold took advantage of three Demon errors in the sixth to add four insurance tallies and that was all they needed to snap a six game losing skid to their non-conference rival. Seven Hawk players managed hits on the evening with Gabi Robertson going 4-for-5 with one RBI and Sydney Knebel cleaned up going 3-for-4 with three RBI. The freshman Knebel also picked up the win in the circle tossing a complete game giving up five runs on 10 hits and striking out eight. Washington was led by Salazar going 3-for-4 with one RBI and Lauren Hinrichsen had a pair of knocks. Salazar tossed five innings and suffered the loss. 

Golden Hawk Head Coach Amy Hartsock-Williams tells KCII Sports her offense was humming. “We were seeing the ball well and that is exactly what you want to do this time of the year. We had a lot of quality at bats and that is all we ask of them. Sometimes a quality at bat is hitting the ball hard right at the defense, but fortunately those hard hits balls got through tonight.”

Mid-Prairie closes the regular season 16-12, securing a winning season for the first time since 2015. They open class 3A regional play Wednesday at Chariton (18-4). Washington is 11-23 and they have a doubleheader with Keokuk tonight before tomorrow’s regular season finale against Solon. 

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