No. 11 Mid-Prairie stunted one game away from state

DAVENPORT — It’s not where the No. 11 Mid-Prairie volleyball would have liked to end.

The Golden Hawks had hopes of a state tournament birth, which would have been their first since 2004.

But it wasn’t meant to be this time around as the Golden Hawks had their season ended with a sweep in the Class 3A regional finals by No. 2 Davenport Assumption.

Mid-Prairie fell to the Lady Knights 25-13, 25-19 and 25-11.

It was a tough start for Mid-Prairie in the Tuesday night regional final.

Assumption was relentless on the offensive end and despite some great defensive stands by Mid-Prairie, the second rated Knights had too much fire power.

The Knights jumped out to a quick 12-5 lead and would never lose it.

Mid-Prairie was able to cut it to six at 17-11 on a hit into the net by Assumption, but the Knights followed with five unanswered to make it 22-11.

“They’re hitters,” Mid-Prairie head coach Sherry Evans said. “They ran really fast lanes in the front row that we just had a really tough time keeping up with. We have been doing that to teams all year and they kind of threw it back to us. They did a good job keeping us out of system.”

The second set of the night was the closest of them all.

Mid-Prairie got down 3-0 on a pair of miss hits and a Assumption kill, but they answered back with three of their own on a two Knight errant hits and a Landry Pacha kill.

Kills by Lanee Duwa and Harper Pacha would tie the set two more times at four and five, but from then on out Assumption never trailed again.

The Knights followed up with a 6-1 run to make it 11-6.

For Mid-Prairie the closest they would come the rest of the way was just four points at 14-10, 16-12 and 21-17.

“I thought our self-confidence was a lot higher in the second set,” Evans said. “They were talking and communicating a lot better as a team. They played together more and weren’t frustrated. That’s a big thing that we’ve overcame this season.

Mid-Prairie gave it all they had, but it was all Assumption in the final set of the night.

The Golden Hawks kept it close in the early stages, tying the set at 5-5 on a hit out by the Knights.

Assumption once again used a big run to create space.

Mid-Prairie was outscored 9-2 over the next 11 serves to put Assumption up 14-7.

For the rest of the match, Mid-Prairie would score just four more points.

The Knights closed it out on a 8-0 run.

“There’s a lot of really good things to look forward to,” Evans said. “This was a really good experience for everybody to see what a really good championship team looks like.”

Mid-Prairie ends its season with a 27-12 overall record.

“This means a lot for our school,” an emotional Evans said. “We’re doing a lot of really good things. I just really love how the kids have believed in me as their coach and all of their other coaches too. They put their trust in us. We can just keep going up from here.”