OSKALOOSA

Mid-Prairie’s roller-coaster boys soccer season ended in its Class 2A tournament debut Monday.

Owen Trimpe, a senior forward, scored a goal for the Golden Hawks, but they fell to Grinnell, 3-1, in a substate game played in Oskaloosa.

The Golden Hawks finished the season with a 9-7 record.

Grinnell (4-10) will face Knoxville (8-5) in the 2A Substate 6 semifinals next Monday at Knoxville.

Trimpe’s goal tied the score at one with 13 minutes, 17 seconds remaining in the first half. After Mid-Prairie took a moment to celebrate, it was right back to work. But Grinnell scored three minutes later.

With two minutes left in the half, Grinnell’s Jack Hoopes bobbed and weaved through the Hawks defense to score for a 3-1 advantage.

Grinnell’s first goal came just 2 minutes, 6 seconds into the game as the Tigers started fast and prepared.  A minute later, Mid-Prairie senior Noah Ford went down with an injury that first arose on Friday night. He was unable to return to the game, needing help to exit the field.

“[Ford] has been good for us all year,” Golden Hawks head coach Wyatt Cady said. “I’m not going to make excuses and say that was a big tide shift, but he definitely has a presence on the field and just his ability to play the long balls and the through balls, we definitely missed that in the middle. We were kind of scrambling about 20 minutes after it to figure out how to adjust. [It] hurt to have it and he cared a lot.”

Mid-Prairie came out swinging in the second half, exiting halftime with renewed energy. Tucker Miller, a junior, especially had a good outing. At one point, Miller displayed a nifty spin-o-rama to get past the swarming Grinnell defense. He then took a shot that went out of bounds.

Later, Miller had another shot attempt that just went wide of the net.

The Golden Hawks totaled nine shots on goal. Another six were not on goal.

After 20 minutes had passed in the second half, Mid-Prairie finally started to dictate play with its speed. Grinnell matched Mid-Prairie’s speed with an even more aggressive game, playing tough, not allowing the Hawks much space when they did break free.

Grinnell started to play the clock, taking its time. This led to some frustration on Mid-Prairie’s part. Dylan Henry steamrolled a Tiger player with less than a minute left and was cautioned for it, forced to leave the game.

The loss ended the first season as head coach for Cady, a former Mid-Prairie star who is excited about building a stronger team next year with more experienced players.

“Hopefully, senior year they come back strong [and] we’re starting 10 seniors,” Cady said. “Hopefully, we can have that physicality and just a little bit more soccer knowledge. I know they’ll come back better.”