"It was pretty flat tack top to bottom and you've got to do two gates, so it's full on, but once we came through the quarter-finals into the semis, it was anyone's race."
Rising Rotorua paddler Zach Mutton finished seventh.
All three Czech paddlers have experience paddling in New Zealand, having each beaten Dawson to titles at Kiwi events within the last year.
Prindis was also coming off his own breakthrough World Cup win, having taken out the K1 slalom title hours earlier.
Dawson was pleased with his own slalom run, finishing 21st in the semifinal with the top 10 advancing.
"The top three-quarters of the course was amazing and I had really good feeling on the water and was going for it.
"Then the wheels fell off a little bit towards the bottom part of the course, which just shows that I probably haven't done enough off-season training this year.
"I'm slowly getting back into shape but I've got to be patient for the next World Cup next week in Germany, build on those positive things and keep improving."
Fellow Kiwi, Rio Olympic silver medallist Luuka Jones, came within a touch of making the women's K1 final, finishing 12th in her semifinal run.
Her 112.19s time included 4s worth of penalties, having touched two gates, leaving her just 1.31s outside the top-10 final, which was won by reigning Olympic champion, Spain's Maialen Chourrau.
It was a similar story for Jones in her C1 category semifinal a day earlier, when she missed one gate entirely and added four touches for 58s worth of penalties to finish 24th.
However, her raw time would've been good enough for the second-fastest semifinal time.
The next World Cup is in Augsburg, Germany, next weekend.
