Prairie's Mitch Lorenz admitted he didn't do much for most of the game Monday night against Marshalltown except make four fouls and miss his first four shots.

With his team on the ropes, though, he came to and came through.

In the last four minutes, the junior forward canned one 3-pointer to put the Hawks ahead, hit another to extend the lead to five, pulled down three crucial rebounds and sank two free throws to ice a 70-59 Prairie win that was much closer than the score indicated.

“I'd call it redemption, for sure,” Lorenz said of his fast finish following a slow start in the Class 4A substate opening round game at Prairie.

“My teammates trusted me, made some screens and got me the ball. It felt great when that first one went down. I think it kind of rallied our team.”

Prairie junior point guard Michael Mims, meanwhile, pretty much kept the Hawks in the game against the hot-shooting Bobcats with a steady stream of drives to the basket, four 3-pointers and eight straight free throws.

On the heels of a 26-point outing Friday at Waterloo East, the steady playmaker scored a career-high 28 and dished out eight assists.

“Michael is a special kid,” said Prairie Coach James Moses. “It was nice to see him step forward tonight with relentless determination from start to finish.”

Mims also came through at crunch time.

After the Hawks missed their first six shots of the game to fall behind 10-0, he gave them their first lead at 22-21 with a 3-pointer and came right with one more.

And with his team trailing 49-42 going into the fourth quarter, Mims went on an 11-point spurt to salt the victory away.

“I was just trying to play hard and do my best at whatever needed to be done for my team,” he said. “Either driving and kicking-out or scoring.

“Coach gave me the green light to just try and create something.”

At 6-16, the Hawks' reward for winning is a Friday matchup at No.2 Iowa City West (18-3). The Trojans are the two-time defending state champions.

“We'll put our dukes up,” said Moses, who is resigning effective at the end of the season after four years on the job. “We're not going to throw in the towel.”

He was an assistant to Coach Rick Williams at Washington a decade ago when the Warriors upset top-ranked West to earn a state tourney berth.

“It can be done,” he pointed out.

“We'll be ready to go. We'll take our time and prepare. We're going in with the mindset that we can win.”

MARSHALLTOWN (59): Dylan Diveny 4 6-7 15, Aaron Hauser 5 4-6 18, Mason McCarville 4 4-5 14, Austin Kluver 1 1-2 4, Connor Johnson 3 0-0 6, Brady Arment 1 0-0 2, Michael Schrempf 0 0-4 0, Fernando Cole 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 15-24 59.

PRAIRIE (70): Bryce Meeker 1 0-0 2, Michael Mims 8 8-8 28, Mitch Lorenz 2 2-2 8, Jalen Rima 5 6-7 16, Coen Brown 3 0-1 8, Cal Clark 1 2-2 4, Austin Fisher 1 2-2 4, Drew Yanacek 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 20-22 70.

Halftime – Prairie 31, Marshalltown 26. 3-point goals – Marshalltown 8 (Hauser 4, McCarville 2, Kluver 1, Diveny 1), Prairie 8 (Mims 4, Lorenz 2, Brown 2). Total fouls – Marshalltown 19, Prairie 18. Fouled out – Johnson.