The No. 9 in Class 2A Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team suffered a pair of setbacks Monday at the hands of the visiting West Liberty Comets at Paul N. Bailey Field in Wellman, dropping both of ends of a doubleheader to the visitors, 3-2 in eight innings in game one and 7-6 in game two.

The opener was controlled by the men on the mound. West Liberty scratched out single unearned runs in the third and sixth to hold a 2-0 lead going to the seventh. Golden Hawk senior Blake Swart played hero with a two-run homer to send the game to extras, but in the eighth against the Mid-Prairie pen, the Comets got one and the Golden Hawks couldn’t match it. Each team had four hits, Mid-Prairie drew six walks and gave up five. Swart was the only multi-hit Hawk, Brady and Brooks Weber had one each and Gentry Bontrager scored a run. Brady Weber worked six innings of two hit ball on the mound, with a walk and 10Ks for the Hawks. Joe Delgado and Caden Laughlin combined for eight innings of four hit, nine strikeout ball for West Liberty.

In the night cap, West Liberty pulled away methodically to build a 7-0 lead with two each in the first, third and fifth and a run in the fourth. A frantic Mid-Prairie comeback started with a four run sixth. Tatem Telfer blasted a two run homer in the seventh to pull the Golden Hawks within one, but Mid-Prairie ran out of outs. The Hawks were out hit 11-6 in the game, drew two walks and gave up three. Brooks Weber had a two hit game and scored twice. Bontrager knocked in a pair, Swart and Cash Brown had one RBI each. Mid-Prairie head coach Kyle Mullet joined KCII sports at the end of the night to talk about what decided the two games and his standout players.

Mullet said, “Give (Swart and Telfer) credit. They stayed in the game in that moment. They understood that any moment can be a big moment. They stayed calm and collected. (Their home runs) I can’t believe that happens twice in one night! They are great players and good hitters. It just shows their determination and where they are mentally in the game. They were competing at the highest level and things went their way. We need that from more of our guys right now. I hope the other guys can feed off of that. Tonight, mentally we were not there. We were not ourselves tonight. Every team goes through that. Not being able to string hits together, but I’m proud of how our guys fought back.”

The Golden Hawks are now 9-3 overall, 5-3 in conference, with a trip to Solon Wednesday.