Mid-Prairie falls one game short of state

IOWA CITY — For the Mid-Prairie girls basketball team, hopes of a regional final title and a state tournament appearance slipped away on Saturday night at Iowa City West High School.

The Golden Hawks were bested by the Knights of Davenport Assumption 44-32.

As the Knights celebrated their victory, the Golden Hawks were left to watch in anguish. Mid-Prairie didn’t go down easily though, as it was a battle until the final whistle.

“I wanted to fight as hard as I could,” senior Maddie Nonnenmann said. “I saw the end coming, but I didn’t want to finish without knowing that I tried my hardest.”

Nonnenmann was the lone Golden Hawk in double figures. She finished her high school career with a game-high 13 points and eight rebounds.

“She’s a gamer,” Mid-Prairie head coach Danny Hershberger said of Nonnenmann. “She’s going to do everything she can to help the team. We needed to find a way to try and get back in it. She stepped up and was giving it everything she had to help us do that.”

For much of the contest, it was a defensive battle between the two teams. Just two baskets were scored, one by each team, in the first five minutes of the game. By the end of the first quarter, Mid-Prairie trailed by just three. 10-7. At the half, Assumption held a 22-16 lead.

The Golden Hawks did well on the Knights’ leading scorer, Ava Schubert, allowing her just one bucket and a pair of free throws in the first half. She would finish with 10 points and seven rebounds.

Mid-Prairie fell into a slump in the third, as Assumption quickly built a 15-point lead, 33-18, by the end of the third. The Golden Hawks were held to just one basket in the third period.

It wasn’t over yet. The Golden Hawks wouldn’t go down without a fight. In the fourth, Mid-Prairie brought the game to within eight points, 37-29, off an 11-4 run, nine of which came from Nonnenmann.

It was the closest the Golden Hawks would come as Assumption killed clock and hit seven free throws down the stretch to punch its ticket to state.

“It’s been fun proving everyone wrong,” Nonnenmann said of those who didn’t believe they could make a run. “We had a really fun group of girls this year. We had the kind of drive we haven’t had my four years of high school and we had a great season when no one believed we could get this far.”

Junior Landry Pacha also said it was great to prove the haters wrong.

“At the beginning of the season, we weren’t supposed to be as good as we were,” Pacha said. “With all the hard work we’ve put in, we wanted to prove everyone wrong. We just kept working and our two seniors Cana (Rediger) and Maddie carried us.”

Amara Jones and Nora Pennington each finished with six points. Senior Cana Rediger ended with three. Landry Pacha and Maya Nonnenmann both scored two.

The Golden Hawks will lose two seniors next year, Rediger and Nonnenmann. Hershberger said the two have been integral to the team’s success this season.

“Cana Rediger and Maddie Nonnenmann have been phenomenal leaders,” he said. “They set the tone and they make sure everyone’s on the same page and everyone’s working together. Just incredible leadership by those two of leading on the court and off the court. Just doing all those little things that seniors need to do to have a good season. Those two are the biggest reason why we had the season we were able to have.”