The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks introduced their fall sports squads at Friday night’s Gator Bowl festivities. The evening started with scrimmages by the varsity and junior varsity volleyball teams as well as the junior varsity football team. Following those scrimmages the Golden Hawk cross country runners were introduced.

Before the varsity football team took the field Mid-Prairie hosted a player auction in which each member of the football squad was auctioned to members of the community for four hours of work. Unofficially that event raised more than $13,000 for the program.

Early in the varsity football scrimmage Mid-Prairie starting running back Eesaa Baylor suffered a lower leg injury on a hard tackle. His status for next weeks game against Washington was not known immediately following play. Despite the injury, the Golden Hawks looked good for their first time under the lights, working on offensive and defensive execution. Following the scrimmage Head Coach Pete Cavanagh shared his overall thoughts on the team’s display.

“I think generally overall, our offensively line did a great job opening some holes, Austin Slabaugh ran the ball hard and made some nice cuts, of course Zach Schwartz at wide receiver made some nice catches, we had some sparks, but too many mistakes though, especially down at the goal line,” Cavanagh said. “I think our second team defense had some nice plays though, a couple of those guys inside, but we’ll watch the film and evaluate and make sure we have the right guys on the field on Friday night.”

The Golden Hawks open up the season Friday when they host rival Washington. You can hear all of the action live on AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com with pregame at 7 and kickoff at 7:30.