The eighth biggest Mid-Prairie athletics story from the last year takes us to the basketball court to highlight Golden Hawk hoops.

Under the direction of first-year head coach, and Mid-Prairie alum Jenny Hobbs, the Hawk girls put together a season with some impressive wins, and a deep postseason run. After entering Christmas break at 5-1, the Golden Hawks hit a rough patch in mid-January, dropping three straight contests to Williamsburg, Iowa City Regina and Tipton. The Hawks would bounce back in a big way, closing the regular season on a nine-game-winning-streak. In that stretch they scored important victories including a nail-biter over Iowa City Regina, getting revenge on Tipton and a rivalry win over Washington. The hot-stretch continued into the playoffs with Mid-Prairie advancing to the 3A Regional Finals following wins over Albia and a ranked Pella Christian squad at home. The Hawks run came to a close one step shy of the State Tournament, falling at No. 1 Mount Vernon 58-50. In the loss, the Golden Hawks gave the defending 3A champ Mustangs all they wanted, holding a lead midway through the fourth frame.

This edition of the Golden Hawks tied or set five all-time program marks including rebounds in a single year, assists in a year, made threes in a year and individually Morgyn Bender set a school record with eight threes in a win at West Branch. Defensively, Mid-Prairie tied the program record with 15.3 steals per game. The steals and assists per game numbers put Mid-Prairie in the top 10 of Class 3A. The Golden Hawks also finished in the top 10 in points per game, field goal percentage and three point percentage.

Four Golden Hawks were named All-River Valley with senior Jovi Evans, juniors Morgyn Bender and Brooklyn Schneider and sophomore Tessa Bombei all receiving the honor. Evans and Bender were both selected for the Iowa Girls Coaches Association Class 3A All-Southeast Region team. Bender was an IGCA All-State selection. Golden Hawk Sophia Puttmann won the IGCA “You Can” Award.

The Hawks were 12-2, runners-up in the River Valley South with an 18-6 overall record, their best win total in 13 years.

For the boys, senior Bryce Henry left his mark on the program with points. Henry joined the Golden Hawk 1,000 point club January 16th at Tipton. He would ultimately score 1,189 points in his career, third most ever for a Golden Hawk, trailing only Class of 2005 Travis Kern’s 1,503 points and 1998 grad Randy Jirsa’s 1,433 points. The Mid-Prairie boys finished with a 16-7 overall record.

Thursday’s #7 story takes us to Dwight G. Sattler Field for football.