MEDIAPOLIS

In one joyful moment, the emotions of the past year exploded with the finish of a football game.

Underneath a scoreboard that displayed the numbers 24 and 8 into the night air in Mediapolis, Mid-Prairie’s Golden Hawks jumped around the other guys’ field and celebrated. They shouted. They screamed. They held their helmets above their heads, reaching toward the sky as if it could be magically seen from Wellman and Kalona more than 60 miles away.

Then, they scrambled into one big pile of football players for a photo op that would document this moment.

So, any question about what this 24-8 victory in Mediapolis meant on October 4?

“It means so much,” senior lineman Landon Kos said. “We’ve been working all summer to get this moment.”

All the morning workouts. All the weight training. The sprints. The one-on-one drills.

For a year.

It was more than a year ago when Mediapolis defeated the Golden Hawks 38-7 in late September 2023 to win a district championship. In Wellman. Oh, sure, the Golden Hawks still won every other district game. They went to the Class 2A playoffs and advanced to the second round.

But the loss to Mediapolis? It stung.

The rematch became the thing.

“This game was one we had circled on our schedule,” quarterback Brady Weber said. “This was the team that beat us out of our district championship last year, so this was really one we had circled. Coaches talked about, this was the game we worked for, all the early mornings, everything we worked for, this was really the game we had circled.

“To get this one, and in pretty dominant fashion, it just feels amazing.”

“This one was, you don’t want to say more important,” Lambert said, “But it was circled. We had a job to do. We knew they were going to be a tough opponent. And anytime you can get a district win, or your third district win to be 3-0 in the district, it’s a good feeling.”

Indeed, this meant something.

Every hit, every tackle delivered a shout from Mid-Prairie’s sideline.

The home bleachers grew silent as one Golden Hawk touchdown led to another and another, and a 24-0 Mid-Prairie lead on three touchdown runs by Hudson Ehrenfelt and a touchdown catch by Ace Peck.

Even a Mediapolis touchdown in the final moments could not scare off a Mid-Prairie celebration that had been in the works for a very long year.

Even this past week, scout teams worked hard in practice, giving the Golden Hawks defense a good look at what Mediapolis quarterback Reese Campbell and others would do. Don’t forget that.

“Very proud of our guys,” Lambert said. “We just kept grinding away.”

Remember, this was a team that had lost its first three games of the year, all to teams ranked in Class 1A: No. 2 Iowa City Regina, No. 5 Wilton, No. 8 Sigourney Keota.

“Those first three games were rough for us,” Kos said. “But to turn it around and be playing some of the best ball we played all my four years being here.”

“We played three really good teams, three highly ranked teams, and we had a shot to win every single game,” Weber said.

This night was all the emotion pouring out of that.

But this was no finishing act.

While Friday’s victory felt like a championship win, it wasn’t. The Golden Hawks clinched a playoff berth. They sit atop the 2A-5 standings. Two games left.

Lambert made that clear in the team’s postgame huddle.

“The job’s not done!” he shouted.

Well, now it’s a step closer. The Golden Hawks defeated Central Lee on Friday to clinch their first district title in 16 years. Next up: a regular-season finale next Friday at Albia. Then, the playoffs.

“We checked one off the list,” Lambert said, “but we’ve still got two to go. Our job’s not finished.”

And when it is finished, imagine the celebration on that night.

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul