The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk boys soccer team kicks off the season tonight in Williamsburg against the Raiders. The Hawks had their first live action against an opponent last week when they traveled to Benton for a scrimmage. Mid-Prairie was 11-4 a year ago, 4-3 in the River Valley Conference. The Golden Hawks won their first nine matches of the season, rising to No. 1 in Class 1A, staying there for four weeks. The Hawks were eighth in 1A with 226 shots on goal and ninth with 70 goals scored.

Four Golden Hawks were named to the Class 1A Academic All-State team including senior goalkeeper Justice Jones, who finished with 59 saves and 80% save percentage between the pipes. Senior midfielder Jack Pennington who led the Golden Hawks with 14 goals and had eight assists. Senior forward Gunnar Gingerich who finished with 11 goals and four assists and junior defenseman Braden Hartley who helped the Golden Hawk defense post nine shut outs. Pennington was also named honorable mention all-state and represented Mid-Prairie in the senior All-Star game. Owen Trimpe led the Hawks with 10 assists last year as a junior. He is also Mid-Prairie’s leading returning scorer with nine goals a season ago. Noah Ford and Tucker Miller are both back after more than five goals and five assists last season. The defense will be anchored by returners Beau Flynn, Hugo Banuelos, Adrian Sanchez, Andrew Stultz and Jackson Miller.

Williamsburg was 10-6 last season, 6-3 in the WAMAC Conference. The Raiders return some key pieces including leading goal scorer and assister Braeden Brown with 14 tallies and six assists last year. Jarrett Sandersfeld and John Eichhorn are both back after six goals a season ago. Sandersfeld also finished with five assists. Mid-Prairie beat Williamsburg in Wellman last year 3-1. This week, Mid-Prairie head coach Wyatt Cady talked with KCII sports about his takeaways from the Benton scrimmage and what they worked on to prepare for the Raiders. “We started out really well. Daniel Rodgers had a goal about two minutes in from 20 yards out. It was nice to see that the kids can create on their own and see routes to run. We’re running a different formation this year so there’s communication between the kids that they need to have. I think they did a really good job picking it up. Hugo (Banuelos) did a really good job for us. He does a lot of talking for the team. Adrian (Sanchez) is new back there and I thought he had a really good second half. Beau Flynn has been solid for us. We had a few subs come in and as the game went on you could see them improving and getting more comfortable. We’ve been working on the fundamentals. Breaking down film. Go over formations and defensive rotations. Once we get those rotations down and we become fundamental players, we’re going to be hard to stop.”

Action between the Raiders and the Hawks gets underway tonight at 6:30p.m. at Bob Murphy Stadium in Williamsburg.