State basketball: Longtime coming for Mid-Prairie seniors

DES MOINES — The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks are a confident basketball team. It’s not hard to see why, with an undefeated regular season and a dominant tournament run behind them.

But the confident swagger, led by five talented seniors, didn’t show up with the high ranking, extra attention and historic success the Golden Hawks have seen this winter. It was there long ago.

Head coach Daren Lambert saw that brazenness already, in his first year at Mid-Prairie, when the current class of seniors arrived in his middle school classroom.

“When I got here six years ago, they were my first class in my classroom,” Lambert said. “They were 12-year-olds, and they talked about how great they were going to be and all these great things they were going to accomplish in high school. They've backed up what they talked about.”

The seniors; Carter Harmsen, Ethan Kos, Jackson Pennington, Will Cavanaugh and Justice Jones, are the anchor of the Mid-Prairie basketball team. They make up five of the Top-8 scorers on the team, including all of the Top-3.

“We've been playing together since third grade,” said Jones. “We're all close.”

This particular group of Golden Hawks has been successful every step of the day. They had a fantastic AAU run, were one of the best middle school teams around in seventh and eighth grade, and they were nearly untouchable on the freshman-sophomore team.

“We always talked about our future accomplishments and our goals in seventh grade,” Pennington said. “And now we're doing them here.”

As sophomores, all five players hit the varsity ranks, including Harmsen, who found himself in the starting lineup. As juniors, the Class of 2022 made up four of the Top-6 scorers on a squad that finished 15-8.

But as good as the Golden Hawks were last season, they couldn’t quite make it to the promised land at Wells Fargo Arena. Mid-Prairie fell to Camanche, 67-55, in the substate semifinals, giving this year’s senior class just one more year to achieve one of their ultimate goals.

A rejuvenated Mid-Prairie squad came into the 2021-22 with big expectations, a boatload of talent, and a lot of camaraderie, spearheaded by the five seniors.

“They treat each other like brothers,” Lambert said. “Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad, but for the most part this season, it's been great. I think that's why we have this success, because of the relationships and the trust we have in each other.”

And as if one final run for this senior class wasn’t motivation enough, Mid-Prairie got some extra bulletin board material directly after a 74-43 substate final win over Northeast. On the bus ride home, it was revealed that the field of coaches snubbed them of an expected No. 1 seed, and instead, the 24-0 Golden Hawks will be playing from No. 3.

“We took that No. 3 as kind of a shot at us,” Pennington said.“ We're going into the state tournament with a chip on our shoulder.”

Coach Lambert described the mood change from elation on the bus ride home, to a sense of disrespect as they arrived at their home gym to celebrate the accomplishment.

“As we stopped here to cut down the nets after the game, that's what was on their minds,” Lambert said. “That's just kind of the way they're wired.”

Mid-Prairie will take on No. 6 seed Monticello (21-3) in the Class 2A quarterfinals. That game will tip off at 10:30 a.m.

If they keep winning, they Golden Hawks will play again on Thursday, and then in Friday for a potential perfect 27-0 record, and a Class 2A state title.

“The job is not done,” Jones said. “We've made it to state, but we're not finished yet.”