Photos Courtesy of Jeff Yoder
Two tests, both passed by the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk basketball teams in Wellman Friday as they broke out the brooms on the visiting Durant Wildcats for a River Valley Conference sweep. The girls contest saw the Hawks explode in the second half for a 63-22 victory. Mid-Prairie led 11-8 after one quarter and put together a 15-4 run that spanned the entire second frame to lead 26-12 at half. The Hawks outscored Durant 37-10 in total after half, including scoring 15 straight during a stretch of the third quarter as they put the ‘Cats through a near six minute drought. The Golden Hawks had 45 rebounds, forced 27 turnovers, had 15 steals and 14 assists. Mid-Prairie senior Maya Nonnenmann joined the KCII postgame show to talk about her team’s keys to the win. “I just drove around them tonight. We went into a press and it’s like they were just throwing the ball right to us. We just kept scoring. We were so into it and we had really high energy. It was a lot of fun. It’s so exciting being on a roll. When the energy is high, everyone’s making shots, nothing compares!”
She and Landry Pacha led the Mid-Prairie offense with 12 points each. Josie Greiner added 11 and Nora Pennington 10. The win is Mid-Prairie’s seventh in a row as they improve to 12-5 on the year and 7-2 in the RVC. Durant is now 4-11.
The Golden Hawk boys finished off a stubborn Durant team in the nightcap 62-54. The Hawks led throughout but were never able to pull away. Mid-Prairie was on top 21-15 after one and 31-25 at half. The Golden Hawks pushed the margin to 11 midway through the third and were answered by eight quick points from the Wildcats to chop the margin again with Mid-Prairie leading 44-41 going to the fourth. Down the stretch, the Golden Hawks answered the challenge and held off Durant for the win. Mid-Prairie hit 11 threes in victory, grabbed 30 boards, had 15 assists and seven steals. Following the win, Golden Hawk senior Alex Bean joined the KCII postgame show to talk about the game. “(To get open three’s) we just worked through our offense, reversing the ball a lot, getting six to ten passes in each possession. Forcing turnovers tonight was a huge factor, it gave us extra possessions to score. If we hadn’t forced that many turnovers it might have been a different game. Coming off last night, a really competitive game, we were a little tired, but we stuck with it and got the job done.”
Camron Pickard topped the Mid-Prairie scoresheet with 20 points, Bean had 19. The win moves Mid-Prairie to 10-6 this year, 6-3 in the River Valley. The Golden Hawk boys and girls are off until a Friday trip to Wilton.