The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks played solid volleyball in their final Saturday tournament of the season, finishing 2-2-2 in matching and going 6-6 in games at the Washington Tournament last Saturday. The Hawks earned wins against Sigourney (15-3, 15-10) and Highland (15-0, 15-9), lost to IMS (6-15, 7-15) and Wilton (13-15, 9-15), and splits with Regina (15-11, 12-15) and Washington (15-10, 6-15).

Mid-Prairie faced a tough morning schedule of Regina, IMS, and Washington in the first three games. However, Mid-Prairie coach Bob Barrick reported his team reversed its usual trend of slow Saturday starts and fought from behind to win the first game of the day against Regina. Although the Hawks were playing very well, they then dropped their next three games, losing one to Regina and two to IMS.

As the morning progressed, the Mid-Prairie front line began blocking better and slowed down a lot of opposing attacks. The improved play helped the Hawks stop their three game slide and take one from host Washington. However, missed serves in the second game kept the Hawks from scoring, giving Washington the second game split.

The afternoon saw the Hawks dominate Sigourney and Highland. Highland had been playing good volleyball all day, defeating Sigourney and earning splits with Regina, Washington, and Wilton before meeting Mid-Prairie, and coach Barrick said he challenged his team to rise to the occasion and the team responded with the solid two game win.

In the last match of the day against Wilton, Mid-Prairie spent too much time playing defense. Though they made it very difficult for Wilton to score, the Hawks couldn’t mount an offensive regularly to score on their own serves.

Mid-Prairie senior outside hitter B.J. Duwa had a big day, recording 38 kills and 28 digs while serving 36-for-39 with 13 aces. Jill Kelley served 43-for-45 with four aces, a 96-percent average, and put up 100 assists, an average of 8.3 assists per game. Sarah Larsen scored 21 kills and recorded 20 digs for the tournament.

On Wednesday, the Golden Hawks lost only their second conference match of the season, dropping to EIHC leading Mount Vernon 15-9, 15-3, 15-0 at Wellman.

The win gave the Mustangs at least a share of the conference regular season title.

The Hawks served 28-for-30 as a team, led by B.J. Duwa who served a perfect 9-for-9 with two aces. Duwa also had three kills and seven digs. Sarah Larsen also had three kills while Erin Ruffin had six digs.

Mid-Prairie is now 13-11-5 overall, 6-2 in the EIHC.