The #12 Mid-Prairie football team celebrated Homecoming 2013 in style Friday night routing Columbus 49-0 in Wellman. In front of a large crowd on a special night Mid-Prairie played nearly perfect, pitching the shut out, getting everyone who dressed into the game, and emerging from the contest with no injuries heading into next week’s pivotal district match up with top five Mediapolis.

The Golden Hawks wasted no time seizing control, taking the ball 68 yards for a touchdown on their first possession with Eesaa Baylor diving in from two yards out for the games first points. Mid-Prairie doubled their lead to 14-0 six minutes later when Baylor scampered in from 34 yards out. Still in the first quarter Mid-Prairie went up by three scores when Reid Miller found back up tight end Karson Duwa for a 29 yard touchdown pass increasing the Golden Hawk lead to 21-0 at the end of the first.

The second quarter was more of the same. The Hawks went up 28-0 with eight minutes to play first half when Miller found Austin Errthum on a fade at the back pylon. Mid-Prairie concluded the first half scoring with an Austin Slabaugh 21 yard touchdown run around left end, set up by an Errthum interception, to take a 35-0 lead into the break.

With the continuous clock things moved quickly in the second half. Following a Columbus three and out Mid-Prairie went up 42-0 on a two yard Canaan Powell touchdown run with 6:16 to play third quarter. Mid-Prairie wrapped up the scoring with Slabaugh’s second TD of the night from 22 yards out running the score to 49-0. Following the game Head Coach Pete Cavanagh talked about the importance of his team’s execution and putting together four quarters.

“I was really happy with how we jumped out and played physical football and drove it right down the field and that is a credit to our offensive line…,” Cavanagh said. “We were concerned about their size on defense and the kind of defense they run, but we were just able to establish it and really eliminate the mistakes that we had the last two weeks. We didn’t let up, we talked about it at half time just playing four quarters, there’s been a couple of games this year that we’ve played a great half and then let the other team back in it, or made mistakes and just didn’t play a clean game, I thought this was our best game as far as that’s concerned, but overall it was a good win, good homecoming win is always nice to have and of course we have a big one next week.”

The Mid-Prairie offensive fireworks were impressive, the Hawks posted 435 yards of total offense including 300 yards on the ground. They were led in the ground game by Baylor’s 117 yards on 13 carries and two scores. Through the air Miller was eight of 13 for 105 yards and two scores. The Mid-Prairie defense had a great night as well holding Columbus to under 75 yards of total offense through the first three quarters. With the win Mid-Prairie improves to 5-1 on the season and stays perfect at 3-0 in district play. Columbus falls to 1-5 overall and 0-3 in district play. Mid-Prairie’s win sets up a game next week for the district lead when the #12 Golden Hawks travel to Archer Field to take on #5 Mediapolis who knocked off previously undefeated in the district West Liberty last night 33-13.