Mid-Prairie held their own with state-ranked Solon, but couldn’t convert early opportunities to score in a 9-1 loss that ends their season. 

Mid-Prairie put two on base in the second on hits from Kylee Kos and Jaselyn Robertson, but they couldn’t push them across. 

Solon scored their first run in the second and another in the third inning to push the lead to 2-0. 

In the third, Kylee Kos and Jaselyn Robertson both reached on hits and Karsen Jehle drew a walk to load the bases with two outs. A strikeout ended the inning with no runs for Mid-Prairie. 

Solon strung together some infield hits on slaps and a knock to the fence to grow their lead to 5-0 in the fourth. Solon catcher Skylar Stookey smashed a home run deep over the fence to make it 7-0 in the fourth. 

Mid-Prairie got their first run of the day on Georgia Nisly’s only hit of the day, she drove in Hayley Yoder to cut the lead to 7-1.

Solon added two runs in the sixth inning to extend the lead to 9-1. Mid-Prairie went down in order in the seventh to end the game and their season. 

The Golden Hawks finish with a 9-21 record, an improvement over their 4-29 campaign in 2018. Senior Cassidy Rourke said the team really became a family this year and it showed with their improvement. 

“We had a really good vibe as a team,” Rourke said. “We played for each other all season long and that will be my biggest takeaway from this season.”

Seniors include Cassidy Rourke, Kylee Kos and Hayley Yoder. All are multi-year starters for the Golden Hawks and both Rourke and Kos combined for 12 of Mid-Prairie’s 17 home runs this season. 

The Hawks best win this season was a 4-1 win over a ranked Iowa City Regina squad on June 10. In that game Myah Lugar pitched seven innings and gave up only four hits. Both Rylee Vercande and Jaselyn Robertson had solo home runs. Mid-Prairie combined for nine hits compared to Regina’s four. 

Other Highlights include a sweep of Tipton and a comeback victory against Fairfield in game two of a doubleheader. In the comeback, Mid-Prairie scored a 3-2 victory, with all three runs coming in the fifth. 

Cassidy Rourke led the team with a .303 batting average, going 30-99 and tallying eight home runs. She drove in a team-high 23 runs. Jaselyn Robertson led the team in doubles with five and stole a team-high 10 bases. 

Nisly was the team’s most reliable defender as the first baseman handled 98 percent of fielding opportunities. Rylee Vercande, Myah Lugar and Karsen Jehle all had fielding percentages over .900. 

Cassidy Rourke had five wins as a pitcher, Myah Lugar won two games and Abbi Patterson won one. They combined for a 5.48 ERA and struck out 100 batters.