After two weeks of waiting, the Mid-Prairie football players were chomping at the bit before Friday night’s homecoming game. 

They were ready to run. 

The Golden Hawks finished each of their first six possessions in the end zone, piling up over 300 rushing yards in the 42-0 win over Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont. 

Senior Tyler Helmuth carried the ball nine times for 127 yards and three touchdowns in the blowout win for Mid-Prairie, who did not have enough healthy players to suit up for week three. 

“Yeah, we were pretty anxious,” Helmuth said about taking the field again. “I feel like there's a lot of people that doubt us. We’ve got a lot of guys hurt and I feel like teams might overlook us a little bit.

"We're just going to come in, run the ball and throw the ball. We've been working really hard and the offseason has been paying off for us.”

Mid-Prairie scored its first points less than a minute into the game when quarterback Will Cavanagh found fellow senior Jarrett Hoffman for a 10-yard touchdown. 

Cavanagh completed 8-of-11 passes for 110 yards in the first half, while the Golden Hawks had 197 rushing yards on 18 carries by halftime. 

“We just had good balance,” Mid-Prairie coach Pete Cavanagh said. “I thought we executed and we limited our penalties until the second half.”

All three of Mid-Prairie’s penalties came in the second half after the Golden Hawks had built a 42-point lead. 

A fourth-down stop on the Rockets’ first possession gave Mid-Prairie excellent field position with a 6-0 lead. Four of Mid-Prairie's touchdown drives began in E-B-F territory. 

“Having good field position is going to help obviously, in any game and I thought our defense played really well,” Cavanagh said. “They're kind of a ground and pound team, and  we were able to stop them and get the ball turned over.”

The Rockets were 2-of-10 on third down and 1-of-3 on fourth. The Mid-Prairie defense held E-B-F to 90 total yards, all on the ground. Justice Jones led the defense with 9.5 tackles. Terry Bordenave had two tackles for loss and six tackles total. 

The Golden Hawk offense played with tempo in the first half, running play after play before the E-B-F defense could take a breath. Four of the Golden Hawk touchdown drives took less than 80 seconds off the clock. The longest of the six drives took just two minutes and 23 seconds. 

Helmuth had a pair of electrifying touchdown carries in the second quarter. The first was a 34-yard rush that put Mid-Prairie ahead 28-0. 

“I was running to the outside and two guys hit me,” Helmuth said. “I just kind of lowered my shoulder and next thing you know, I was still up. To stay in bounds I had to kind of spin around. The last guy, he was coming really fast. I decided just to cut back.”

The safety’s momentum carried him past Helmuth, who walked into the end zone. He added another 39-yard score, which left defenders lying on the turf as he crossed the goal line with 11 seconds left in the first half.  

Braden Hartley also found the end zone twice in the first half. He finished with 76 rushing yards on eight carries. 

Jack Pennington led the Mid-Prairie receivers with four catches for 57 yards while Hoffman finished with 51 receiving yards on three catches. 

After possessing the ball for a total of just 8:28 in the first half, Mid-Prairie chewed up over 14 minutes of a running clock in the second half with a pair of 11-play drives. 

Playing without a few key players, Mid-Prairie managed to avoid any more major injuries on Friday. 

“We’re hoping to get maybe a guy or two back this coming week,” Cavanagh said. “I think a lot of guys stepped up. Shawn Dodds and Dylan Henry are both guys that were role players that had to step in a play a lot for us.

"I thought Jack Pennington stepped up at safety and we had some guys on the d-line like Terry (Bordenave) and Gannon (Callahan), some of those guys played really well.”

SCORING SUMMARY

E-B-F             0    0   0   0    --   0

Mid-Prairie   20  22  0   0   --   42

MP: Jarrett Hoffman 10 pass from Will Cavanagh (kick failed)

MP: Tyler Helmuth 9 run (Colin Miller kick)

MP: Braden Hartley 8 run (Colin Miller kick)

MP: Tyler Helmuth 34 run (Cavanagh rush)

MP: Braden Hartley 3 run (Colin Miller kick)

MP: Tyler Helmuth 39 run Colin Miller kick)

MID-PRAIRIE PASSING: Will Cavanagh, 9-of-13, 136 yards, 1 TD; Colin Miller 1-of-1, 17 yards.

MID-PRAIRIE RUSHING: Tyler Helmuth, 9-127, 3 TD; Braden Hartley, 8-76, 2 TD; Dylan Henry, 8-57; Colin Miller, 4-35.

MID-PRAIRIE RECEIVING: Jack Pennington, 4-57; Hoffman, 3-51, 1 TD; Helmuth, 1-19; Evan Phillips, 1-17;

LEADING TACKLERS: Justice Jones, 9.5; Terry Bordenave, 6; Helmuth, 6; Jarron Thomas, 3.5.

RECORDS: Mid-Prairie, 2-2; E-B-F 1-3.