Friday night the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks open class 2A district seven play when they host Central Lee. Mid-Prairie comes in with 0-1 record after a 27-21 loss to rival Sigourney-Keota in week one. The Golden Hawks were led in the game by Vinny Bowlin through the air at 14 of 25 for 238 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. His favorite target was Keegan Gingerich with six catches for 118 yards and a score. Kayden Reinier finished with 134 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 22 carries. Justice Jones led the Golden Hawk defense with eight and a half tackles, including five solo. Due to COVID-19 concerns surrounding the Golden Hawk’s week two game with Iowa City Regina, the contest did not take place with the Regals opting to travel to Clear Lake.

Central Lee comes into the contest with an overall record of 0-2. The Hawks dropped their season opener 37-31 against Pekin and fell to Van Buren in week two 40-21. For the year, Central Lee is led by Dylan Stuecker at 36 of 62 for 356 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. His favorite target is Bryce Finney with 12 catches for 59 yards. Kade Myhre has four touchdown catches. On the ground Jaedon Betker has 30 carries for 130 yards and a score. Betker is the leading tackler with 25 stops. Logan Kearns has a fumble recovery and Myhre an interception. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Pete Cavanagh talked about what the Golden Hawks did with the week off, and the challenges posed by Central Lee. “It was just a tough situation last week to break the news to them that we couldn’t play. We are happy to be back and practicing football. I think it wears on the kids a little bit too. You can see a strain on them. They have a lot on their plate. They are trying to learn an opposing team’s offensive schemes, practice plays that we want to run, keep up on their studies, and then you add in this stress. They deserve credit. They have done a great job handling it. I think Central Lee is much better than a year ago. They have a couple of move-ins to the district that are contributing to big plays on the offensive side. We are hoping to contain that. We can’t turn the ball over tonight and we have to limit their big plays. If we can do that we should be fine.”

These two teams met a season ago with the Golden Hawks posting a dominant 60-7 win. Mid-Prairie will also honor 13 members of the senior class tonight for Senior Night. You can hear all of the action live tonight on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Football Friday Preview Show at 5:30, Washington HyVee Pregame Show at 6:30 and kickoff at 7p.m. from Dwight G. Sattler Field in Wellman.