Mid-Prairie prepares for Monticello

WELLMAN — The state title quest continues for the Mid-Prairie boys basketball team.

Despite already punching their ticket to the state tournament, the Golden Hawks are far from finished.

In Wednesday’s practice, the boys battled back and forth as if they were opponents on the football field, putting their will and drive to push even farther on display.

Players on the sideline waiting to be subbed in during a scrimmage yell out, coaching one another. It’s all for the betterment of the team.

“There are some competitive guys out here, even guys that don’t get the minutes,” senior Justice Jones said. “They push us. It gets chippy sometimes, but it’s all love, and it doesn’t leave the court. The job is not done. We’ve made it to state, but we’re not finished yet.”

Mid-Prairie head coach Daren Lambert was imitating a referee, but was pushing them to get after it.

“We picked up the intensity,” Lambert said. “We'll do that Thursday and Friday, and probably Saturday a little bit. As we get closer to game time next week, we'll probably start toning it down and do a lot of run throughs and things like that. They were getting after it today for sure, and getting a little testy, which is what we want.”

With an undefeated historic, 24-0, regular season and substate playoffs, there was always a little pressure, but it’s fuel for Mid-Prairie.

“That pressure fuels how we play in practice,” senior Will Cavanagh said. “You never want to go out and disappoint and you never want to go out and lose. The pressures kind of on your shoulders and in your head, but you gotta go as hard as possible. The streak was never really a goal that we had in mind, but when you set goals like winning a conference championship, playing good defense, and winning a state title you have to win a lot of games to do that.”

Mid-Prairie has proved themselves time and time again. Come Tuesday, the Golden Hawks will have to do it once again.

Despite having an unblemished season thus far and being the only undefeated team in the Class 2A pool at state, they were given the three seed. They want to show they’re No. 1.

“We got a No. 3 seed up there, so the pressure is on us to prove that we’re not the No. 3 seed,” senior guard Jackson Pennington said. “We’re the No. 1 seed.”

Their first foe is a familiar one, in River Valley adversary Monticello. They defeated the Panthers 65-50 on Feb. 11 in the final regular season.

Although the Golden Hawks have already gotten the better of the Panthers once this season, they’re not taking them lightly.

“Obviously we know them and we’ve beat them before, but obviously they know us,” Pennington said. “They know what they have to correct to come in and try to beat us.”

Lambert said that it’s not often you see the teams you play in the regular season in the state tournament, but it has its perks.

“The good thing about seeing a team already is you know them,” Lambert said. “You know your game plan. On the flip side, they have time to adjust.”

Mid-Prairie senior forward Carter Harmsen says the goal is to do what they’ve done all season thus far and just stay focused.

“We’re going to just stay hyper-focused and super locked in going into that,” Harmsen said. “We’ve tried to do that every game, but this being such an important game two hours away in the Well we’re going to be super focused and get the job done.”

If one things for certain, it’s that Mid-Prairie will have great community support, as they’ve had all season long.

Time and time again Golden Hawks fans have turned up to cheer on their players. With making it to state it’s no different.

“When we played Northeast and seeing all the fans and community support there gave all sorts of emotion,” senior Ethan Kos said. “We felt proud to know that we made other people proud of what we’ve been doing so far. We’re just amazing at how many people have showed up to support us.”

Cavanagh said all the perks that coming with going to the state tournament are great, but at the end of the day it’s all about the matchup at hand and getting a win.

“It’s easy to get distracted with everything that’s going on,” Cavanagh said. “We’re having a lunch together, shooting at Carver, and getting a hotel together. All that is good, at the end of the day we play a very very good team and we gotta be ready for that. What will really help us is if we go there and do our job. We have won 24 straight so what we’re doing is working. We just gotta keep doing that.”