WELLMAN

The history stares down on Mid-Prairie’s boys soccer team every time it takes the field.

And in a good way.

Eleven years ago, the Golden Hawks won a school-record 17 games and made it to the state championship round with an 11-game winning streak in which they outscored opponents by a blistering 70-6 count.

Today, Wyatt Cady and Wade Stutzman, who started all 20 games that year as senior teammates, are coaching the Golden Hawks, side by side, and hoping to turn back the clock to those golden years.

The text messages constantly flow between the 2014 Mid-Prairie grads. Starting lineups, formations, you name it.

“It makes it a lot more fun,” said Wyatt, who previously coached with his dad, Pat, and was promoted to head coach three years ago.

Stutzman joined the team as a volunteer assistant last year, but this year he is a paid assistant.

“I always wanted to coach,” he says.

“We always messaged each other a lot of the time,” Cady said. “Now we can have something else to message about. Formations. Lineups. We both send each other lineups every day.”

They are two guys back at their old school. Dream coaching jobs, really.

“I’m having a lot of fun,” said Stutzman, who works in IT (information technology) at the University of Iowa. “He just needed help, so I stepped in. it’s been a good time.”

The coaching staff is new and so is the team, and that is what is really driving this machine into a new era.

There are only three seniors on the team: Goalkeeper Jacob Flynn, Traevin Gugel and Adrian Sanchez Reyes.

Peyton Fox, a junior, is the only returning player who scored a goal last year, and he scored seven of them to lead the team.

He knows the history of 2014 and of his coaches.

“They’ve brought it up a few times,” Fox said with a smile, “like how they lost to Regina (in the state final).”

The team is packed with freshmen and sophomores, most of whom played their first high school games in the first week of the season at Highland and Williamsburg, both losses.

“It’s actually been pretty fun,” Fox said. “We’re a really young team, we’ve got a lot of freshmen. But honestly I think that’s good just for the future of our team.”

“I love this group of guys,” Fox said. “It’s a pretty fun group to play with, especially since now that I’m one of the leaders of the team and can help other people. It’s pretty fun.”

For the first time, all these Golden Hawks are Wyatt Cady’s Golden Hawks. There’s a huge amount of promise, and pressure, that comes with that.

A year ago, the Golden Hawks made it to a regional title game against Iowa City Regina Catholic. This year, the Golden Hawks started a game with five varsity players in their first high school game.

“Year three, I’m definitely feeling a lot more prepared,” Cady said. “But at the same time, these are all now my kids. The seniors that graduated last year did have two years with my dad. I mean, he ran some really great drills and got them to buy in. And now, it’s all on me.

“These are my guys.”

Still, the history is here. When the Golden Hawks hosted West Liberty in their River Valley Conference opener April 7, Pat Cady joined the sideline, shouting encouragement and instructions to those young players. While Wyatt Cady met with media members after the game, dad Pat walked to the corners of the field and retrieved the corner flags, a chore that previously fell to others, like Wyatt.

The Golden Hawks’ first three games wound up in shutout losses in a brutal early season schedule that included games against 2024 1A state semifinalist West Liberty and 2024 2A regional finalist Williamsburg. But there is no panic. Wyatt sees improvement with each game. Newly learned soccer plays will soon become routine. Missed chances will turn into goals.

A week later, Kale Miller scored in the early moments of a 3-0 win over Monticello.

“Obviously, we have a lot to work on,” Fox said. “Like where are we going to put the ball, how we’re going to run the formation.”

“I think we’re going to be in a really good spot this year,” Wyatt Cady said. “We have some freshmen looking really good.

“Almost everyone we’ve got playing rode the bench last year,” he said. “They were waiting for those seniors to graduate. They fully embrace the idea that it is their year and it’s their turn.”

The journey is ready to twist.

And when it does, standing right there on the sideline will be those 2014 soccer buddies, Wyatt Cady and Wade Stutzman. Back home again.

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