Mt. Pleasant, Mid-Prairie begin season with Hall of Pride match-up

MT. PLEASANT — It’s that time of the year again. Area high school basketball is making its return.

The Mt. Pleasant and Mid-Prairie women’s basketball teams faced off Friday evening in a Hall of Pride scrimmage.

The Panthers played host to the Golden Hawks, but fell in an overtime finish 65-58.

Although the game doesn’t count toward either team’s regular season record, it’s a great reflection of the hard work put in during the offseason, and what each team needs to work on.

“It was a great game for us, before we open against Pella next Tuesday” Mt. Pleasant head coach Curt Watson said. “Pretty exciting game too, to go into overtime. It was a valuable experience for all of our players. Some of them haven’t played any varsity. It was good for my sophomores to get some action and know what it’s like to get play varsity.”

The Panthers showed resilience in the first half, heading into the locker room with a six-point lead, 27-21.

Mid-Prairie didn’t let up and for the rest of the contest, it was a back and forth battle.

With just over 22 second left in the game, the panthers hit two free throws, that would send the game into overtime at 55 all. The Golden Hawks would take the victory.

“Just to see the girls play hard and give it everything they have is the biggest thing,” Mid-Prairie head coach Daniel Hershberger said. “We want to control what we can control. In the first half we were down on ourselves a bit and weren't hitting shots the way we wanted to. In the second half, we responded really well. I'm really proud of our girls. We mentally stuck with it.”

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