Although the Golden Hawks had not made a field goal in about 10 minutes, Mid-Prairie still had a five-point advantage over Raytown South with about two and a half minutes left to play on Thursday. 

Will Cavanagh’s 3-pointer went off the front iron, and a putback attempt from Ethan Kos rolled around the rim, but wouldn’t go. 

To Mid-Prairie, it felt like there was a lid on the basket. 

Kos tipped the ball out to Cavanagh, who quickly found Jack Pennington in front of the Golden Hawk bench. 

“Right when it left Will’s hands, I'm yelling, ‘hit it, hit it, hit it,’ ” Mid-Prairie coach Daren Lambert said. “I was not going to let Jack think twice about passing it up. 

“It was just one of those basketball plays where it felt like — this is set up. The extra pass is there, of course that shot’s going to go in.”

Pennington scored all seven of his points in the second half as Mid-Prairie held on for a 50-43 win over Raytown South at the Twelve Courts of Christmas in Kansas City. 

Mid-Prairie led 39-17 midway through the third quarter before the Cardinals went on a 21-2 run. 

“They were getting second and third chance opportunities with long rebounds,” said Lambert, who was an assistant coach at Raytown South before taking over at Mid-Prairie. 

“And then we were turning it over, very uncharacteristic turnovers that we haven't seen in our first six games. 

“It was one of the first times this season where we had to call a couple of timeouts and a little bit of the chaos kind of got to us. But towards the end there we regrouped, got our mindset back, and I’m just really proud of how the guys responded to probably one of the toughest situations we've faced all season.”

Mid-Prairie went 8-of-10 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter and made 12-of-15 in the game. 

Alex Bean scored seven of his nine points in the first quarter as Mid-Prairie took a 15-10 lead. 

Camron Pickard had a nice drive and pass to Shawn Dodds for an easy two points in the first quarter. Dodds finished with six points off the bench. 

Mid-Prairie scored the last eight points of the first half to take a 29-15 lead into the locker room. 

“It was  easily the most physical game we've played all year,” Lambert said. “They let us play and Raytown South was super physical, which we knew they were going to be.

“They were up in our face and it kind of took us the first couple minutes to adjust. But then we started finishing through contact, using the jump stop and playing through strong. 

“And then guys were just taking what they gave us defensively — if it was a layup or a pull up jumper, we were making good decisions and we weren’t turning the basketball over.”

Mid-Prairie’s leading scorer, Carter Harmsen, got a few good looks from near the basket in the first quarter, but couldn’t get a shot to fall. After scoring five points in the second quarter, he was aggressive coming out of the locker room. 

He scored the Golden Hawks’ next six points from the paint — leading the fast break, slashing to the basket for a layup, and catching the ball in the post. 

Harmsen finished with a team-high 15 points and seven rebounds. 

Next, Pennington stole the ball and laid it in to put Mid-Prairie up by 20. He had six steals and seven rebounds for the Golden Hawks. Cavanagh had three steals. 

Kos finished with nine points and seven rebounds, five coming on the offensive end. He converted 3-point play during a 13-3 Mid-Prairie run in the first half, and hit a pair of free throws in the fourth quarter to end the Cardinals 21-2 run. 

The Golden Hawks have a record of 7-0 after the win. Raytown South (3-6) has an enrollment of over 1,200 and plays Class 5 basketball in Missouri.

Mid-Prairie will host Wilton after the break. The Beavers (7-1) are undefeated in conference play with a 55-52 win over Northeast, a 69-47 win over Anamosa, and a 63-34 blowout of West Branch. 

"We're going to spend time with family, and relax, and kind of clear our heads mentally, because when we come back, it's going to be a true test," Lambert said.  "We've got Wilton, West Branch, Anamosa — all teams that we need to go out and beat if we want to keep things rolling.

"I know they're ready for the break because they're tired. I 've got to wash a lot of jerseys because there's blood all over them from today. It was it was pretty physical, so their bodies need it,  their minds need it, and so do the coaches."