The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk football team fell in their annual Homecoming game Friday night, as Iowa City Liberty got a 33-6 win at Dwight G. Sattler Field in Wellman. It was the Hawks that struck first after a Liberty punt, Mid-Prairie marched 48 yards on five plays, capped by a 15 yard touchdown run from Kayden Reinier. After a missed extra point, Mid-Prairie was up 6-0. From there, Liberty would score 33 unanswered including 27 in the first half. The Lightning watched Kaleb Williams break a 43 yard touchdown run on the next series to take a 7-6 lead. Following a Golden Hawk interception, Liberty capitalized on the short field going 28 yards, finishing with a nine yard completion from Drake Woody to Ben Houselog for a touchdown on fourth down to run the score to 14-6 at the end of the first quarter. Williams added a 66 yard touchdown run in the second quarter and quarterback Drake Woody a four yard scoring run to make it 27-6 at the break. In the second half, Liberty put together one more push, this time a Max Tafolla five yard touchdown run finished a 6 play 32 yard march and ended the scoring for the night. After the game, Mid-Prairie head coach Pete Cavanagh talked about the contest “It was nice to get out to a good start, in our first four games we have really played well on the opening drive. I thought Kayden ran hard and we opened up some holes. We caught them on their heels and had a nice drive. We thought we had some momentum kicking off the game and just couldn’t sustain it. Their running backs are tough. Their O-line comes off the ball hard. We knew what we were getting, it was a matter of executing and we couldn’t do it tonight.”

Reinier led the Golden Hawks with 89 yards on 23 carries and one score. Brad Tornow was four of 11 through the air for 26 yards and an interception. Justice Jones led the Mid-Prairie defense with 12 and a half tackles. Kaleb Williams led Liberty with 133 yards and two touchdowns on eight carries. The Lightning rushed for a total of 345 yards. The Liberty defense posted four sacks. With the win, Iowa City Liberty is now 3-1 on the year, Mid-Prairie falls to 2-2. The Golden Hawks will be back on the field next Friday in Wellman when they host Central Lee.