The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team came up short in both ends of a River Valley Conference doubleheader Monday at Michael Kron Field on the campus of Iowa City Regina High School. The No. 8 in Class 2A Regals defended their home diamond with an 8-1 win in the opener and 11-10 come-from-behind victory in the nightcap. Game one was a defensive battle early. Regina broke the scoreless tie with a pair in the third and the Hawks answered with one in the fourth. A Regal tally in the bottom of four made it 3-1 Regina at the halfway mark. Regina continued to add on late with another run in the fifth and a four-run-rally with two out in the sixth on six straight hits, gave the Regals a seven run win. Regina out hit the Hawks 11-7 and drew five walks to Mid-Prairie’s two. Cash Brown was two for two for the Hawks, Gentry Bontrager had the Mid-Prairie run. Connor Nicpon and Trey Streb combined for six hits, three runs and two RBI for Regina. Will Litton was the winning pitcher, giving up seven hits and one unearned run with five strikeouts in six frames for the Regals. Brady Weber took the loss for Mid-Prairie with five hits, three earned runs, four walks and five strikeouts in four and a third.
The Hawks couldn’t hold off Regina in the nightcap, falling by a run. The Golden Hawks exploded in the first, sending 14 men to the plate and scoring nine times on nine hits. Mid-Prairie’s lead was 10-2 after two innings, but Regina continued to chip away, scoring three in the third, two in the fourth and a four run sixth gave the home team the lead for good. After the game, Mid-Prairie head coach Kyle Mullet joined KCII Sports to talk about what he saw.
Mullet said, “I was disappointed in the way the guys competed in the first game. It felt like we let our guard down. I feel like we got away from our approach. We always talk about competing like the score is 0-0. The first game was a hard-fought battle. Very proud of how the guys came out in the second game. Totally different team. The energy, the offense. We’ve been talking about that for the last few weeks now. We’ve got to produce offensively. First inning, that was great, rack up all those hits, all those runs, but you know at that point there is still a lot of game to be played. We are going to make physical errors, we are going to make mental errors, right now it’s about cleaning that up. We made some plays on defense, we made pitches and they put the ball in play. On several of their key hits we located where we wanted, you have to tip your hat to Regina. Our guys are at a point in the year where they need to keep working.”
The Hawks were out hit 13-11 in the night cap. Conner Wiles had three hits, two driven in and a run scored for the Golden Hawks. Brooks and Brady Weber added two hits each. Brady drove in two and scored once, Brooks scored twice. Blake Swart also knocked in a pair. All nine in the Mid-Prairie order scored a run. Jack Gavin had three hits and drove in three for Regina. Litton added three more hits. Gabe Schuessler got the win in relief for Regina, Wiles the loss for Mid-Prairie. The Regals clinched the RVC South title with the sweep and improve to 21-4 overall. The Hawks drop to 14-12. These two teams see each tonight in Wellman.