Photos Courtesy of Iowa Western Community College Sports Media
As bowl season heats up around the country, one Mid-Prairie football alum is already comfortably at home on winter break with a national championship ring.
Former Golden Hawk standout Cain Brown lived the championship dream earlier this month with Iowa Western Community College, winning the National Junior College Athletic Association Football National Title with the Reivers.
Western started the year 10-0, notching wins over Dodge City, Georgia Military, Garden City, Highland, Ellsworth, Independence, Snow College, Butler, Iowa Central and Coffeyville. The Reivers hit one snag, dropping a game at No. 1 Hutchison on November 11th by a 42-28 score, right before the final playoff rankings were released. Western would have nothing to worry about, they remained in the top four, and were selected as the two seed to compete in the national semifinals where they crushed the three seed Kilgore College 47-7 in Council Bluffs. That win earned them a spot in the National Championship game at Little Rock ,Arkansas against four seed East Mississippi. The Lions couldn’t hang either. The Reivers ran wild on their way to the championship 61-14. This week, Brown, a 6’2 175lb wide receiver, talked with KCII Sports about the team title experience, celebration and program. Brown said, “We went to Little Rock on Thursday or Friday and we ended up practicing at the University of Arkansas. Up to warmups for the game we were locked in. It was awesome to see because we knew what was at stake. During the game we started running away with it and everyone was giving each other looks like ‘We’re about to win a National Title!’ (After the game) we immediately grabbed the Gatorade buckets and dumped them all over the coaches. All of the work we put in is paying off, and when that clocked ticked to zero, everyone stormed the field, we went and got our National Championship hats and t-shirts, put them on, then grabbed the trophies and were running around yelling! We were on top of the world in that moment! The standard here is set. If we don’t make it to the championship game, it’s a let down. We know we can do it. Winning two National Titles in a row and making it three in a row, players are going to want to come here and win a title and play in front of DI coaches, and we bring DI coaches to practice every day.”
Brown saw time in the Reivers 34-14 win over Iowa Central, recording a tackle. This is the second straight National Championship for Iowa Western who finished this season 12-1. They took the title in 2022 with a 10-2 overall mark.
You can hear a full interview with Brown during the January 3rd and 4th editions of the KCII PM Sports Page.