WELLMAN

In so many ways, Mid-Prairie’s baseball team was perfect in its playoff opener Tuesday night.

The Golden Hawks scored 10 runs in four innings against Iowa City Regina Catholic.

Kayden Renier, a senior, had a triple and scored three runs, and then pitched two scoreless innings in relief behind starter Aiden Rath.

Rath, Keegan Gingerich and Collin Miller each had two hits.

And just like that, a 10-0 win vaulted the River Valley South champions into hosting the District 11 title game against Williamsburg at 7 p.m. Saturday.

“For our first district game, this is where we want to be. We want to be playing like this. The goal is to play this way every game,” said head coach Kyle Mullet. “When we can play like this, we’re going to be very, very hard to beat.”

The victory was the fifth in seven games for Mid-Prairie (18-7), which is ranked fourth in Class 2A by the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association, and came just eight days after the Golden Hawks lost to Regina 13-12 in the second game of a doubleheader. On Tuesday, there were no chances of a repeat.

“We had no errors, fielded it well,” Mullet said. “Our pitchers threw strikes. And hit the crap out of the ball.”

While the Regals were held to four hits by Rath and Reinier, the Golden Hawks racked up nine hits. Rath had a double and a triple, driving in one run and scoring once. The Golden Hawks scored multiple runs in every inning: two runs in the first inning, three in the second, two in the third and three in the fourth.

Rath gave up just one hit and struck out seven in three innings, but was replaced by Reinier after his pitch count reached 67. Reinier finished the game with just 42 pitches, meaning both could be available for Saturday’s district final or the substate final next Tuesday.

“We wanted to be smart with the pitch count and keep everyone healthy,” Mullet said.

Williamsburg (18-14) enters Saturday’s showdown with its own impressive win in the semifinals. The Raiders scored 13 runs in four innings to make quick work of Mediapolis.

Levi Weldon leads the Raiders with a .526 batting average, 51 hits, 36 RBIs and 5 home runs.

Weldon and Rath are the No. 5 and 14 hitters in Class 2A, respectively, at .526 and .506. But Rath leads Class 2A in home runs with 12 and is No. 9 in RBIs with 39.