Until last November, Callie Huber had never started a varsity basketball game at Mid-Prairie.

Oh, she played in 23 games as a sophomore. And she got into three games as a freshman.

But she had never started.

So what happened this season? Huber started every game, put up rebounding numbers that haven’t been seen for seven years and emerged as the top rebounder in the River Valley South with 197 boards.

It took Huber just two starts this season to get her first double-double: 12 points and 11 rebounds against Benton Community, a team that ended the regular season as the eighth-ranked team in Class 3A.

From that point on, she was a rebounding machine who plays such a key role for the Golden Hawks as talk already begins about a promising 2024-25 season.

As a junior this year, she had 50 more rebounds than power forward Maddie Nonnenmann did in her junior year in 2021. The last Mid-Prairie rebounder with these numbers was Ireland Hostetler, who piled up 205 boards in a 17-win season for the Golden Hawks in 2016-17.

The Golden Hawks should surface as a title contender in the River Valley South next hoops season. They have the league’s top sophomore guard in Jovi Evans and the league’s top freshman guard in Brooklyn Schneider. Waiting to come on board as a freshman in 2024-25 will be junior high standout Jeorgia Evans, Jovi’s younger sister.

Huber will be the rebounding and scoring machine in the paint for the Golden Hawks. And at 6 feet, or more, she’ll be an immovable force. Only three other River South players had 14-rebound games this season.

Freshman Force

Maddie Nonnenmann, a 2022 Mid-Prairie graduate, has played a big role in Black Hawk College’s four-game winning streak as the Braves head toward the finish of their season.

Nonnenmann has started in 27 games this year, hitting in double figures in scoring in every game of the win streak. She is averaging more than 10 points a game in her freshman season.

Black Hawk is a community college based in Moline, Illinois.

State Primer

A pair of teams that Mid-Prairie played, Solon and Benton, made the eight-team field for the girls basketball state tournament in Des Moines.

Solon is the third seed and Benton is the seventh seed. If both teams win their quarterfinal-round games Feb. 26 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, they would meet in the 3A semifinals Feb. 29.

Another area team to watch is Clear Creek Amana, the top-ranked team in Class 4A. The Clippers did not lose a game during the regular season and have won 23 straight. They pounded Oskaloosa by 43 points in a regional semifinal and Keokuk by 33 points in the regional final.

The state tournament begins Monday at Wells Fargo Arena and goes through March 2.

Powerful Lynx

North Linn, which ended Highland’s season in a 1A boys basketball regional with a 117-36 win last week, may be the most explosive team in the state offensively.

The top-ranked Lynx are averaging more than 78 points per game and winning games by more than 40 points. They won their first two tournament games by an average of 67 points.

Substate finals in Classes 1A and 2A are Saturday, followed by substate finals in Classes 3A and 4A next Tuesday. The boys state tournament begins March 4 in Des Moines.

Still Winning

Mitzi Evans, a 2022 Mid-Prairie graduate who won state championships in the 400- and 800-meter runs in 2022 at Drake University, won the Women’s 800 at the indoors Maverick Premier Meet on Feb. 10 in Mankato, Minnesota, in a meet-record time of 2:12.26.

She defeated runner-up Cassidy O’Meara, a senior at Minnesota State, by more than four seconds.

Evans said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was her third-fastest time in the 800, and thanked her coach, Josh Maxwell.

When Evans won the 2A 800 in May 2022 at Drake’s Blue Oval, she had a personal-best time of 2:12.56 and nearly set a high school state record.

Ready for Track?

Track practices began this week around the state with indoors competitions beginning in March.

The River Valley Conference indoor championships are scheduled for March 19 at the University of Dubuque.

Mid-Prairie’s girls team is coming off a season in which they finished second in Class 2A at the 2023 Iowa High School Championships at Drake University.

Lone Tree begins its indoor season March 5 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls in the Dickinson Relays.

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul