The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk football team finished their second straight campaign of 3-6 in 2018.
In the new playoff format, the Hawks found themselves as road warriors playing three of their four non-district games on the road, leaving them away from home four of the first five weeks of the season, against the likes of Grinnell, Pekin, and Iowa City Liberty. After finishing the non-district portion of the schedule winless, Mid-Prairie turned it on in week five, hammering Central Lee on the road 56-21.
After capturing their first win of the season, the Golden Hawks suffered back to back setbacks the next two weeks falling to Williamsburg and losing a heartbreaker to Eddyville-Blakesburg on homecoming by one score. At 1-6 on the season the Golden Hawks rallied to finish the year strong, beating Davis County in Bloomfield and blasting Albia on senior night. The Hawks outscored their final two opponents 81-26. Mid-Prairie’s win over Davis County was especially historic, it was head coach Pete Cavanagh’s 100th career win, it also saw Justin Schwartz break Darian Patterson’s record for most receptions in a career.
For the season the Golden Hawks were led by Brad Tornow through the air. He was 58 of 138 for 816 yards, five touchdowns and eight interceptions. His favorite target was Grant Boyse with eight catches for 261 yards and a pair of scores. Tom butters was right behind him with 10 catches for 256 yards and three touchdowns to lead the big play aerial attack. On the ground, Schwartz had a 1,000 yard season at 1,015 on exactly 200 carries with 12 touchdowns. Boyse also spent time in the backfield, putting up 461 yards and seven touchdowns on 51 carries. The Golden Hawk offense was anchored by an offensive line that included a pair of all-district selections in Chaz Patterson and Isaac Boucher.
Defensively, Mid-Prairie was led by Boyse, the team’s leading tackler with 55.5 stops and a pair of interceptions. The Hawks had eight all-district choices, along with Patterson and Boucher, Schwartz was chosen as a runningback, Boyse at safety, Jack Baker at defensive end, Josh Wallington at defensive line, Tornow at quarterback and Rex Peck at fullback.