Hawks Hold their Own in Scrimmage with Gonzales
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Hawks hold their own in scrimmage with Gonzales last Friday at Hawk Stadium.
Canyon Lake will be using younger players when the season starts in two weeks and that was certainly noted in the Friday scrimmage.
Chris Schultz and Matthew O’Connell ready go dish out some pain
“I was pleased on how our scrimmage went,” Head Coach Charley Drum started. “We were wide eyed and I thought we matched them punch for punch.”
With the youth age upon the Hawks being wide eyed is certainly something that might have been expected as Canyon Lake suited up some players that were waiting another 2 weeks last season as 8th graders to find their jersey number.
A well oiled machine will not be expected at this time of year as the Hawks also search for a quarterback and two running backs lost in last year’s senior class.
Between those players lost, Canyon Lake, will need to replace 74% of their rushing yards and a whopping 86% of yards gained by the forward pass.
Robert Woods is the majority of that yardage returning and you could certainly see that he is a load to bring down running as well as being on the receiving end of a 60 yard pass play bringing some excitement to the home crowd as the night turned into a pleasant evening temperature wise.
“We still made a lot of mistakes,” Coach Drum said. “Our intensity and effort stepped up but we will need to improve everyday….we are very young.”
Canyon Lake will have another dress rehearsal next Thursday in Medina Valley but on this night Coach Drum and the coaches did get a good look at what they might expect in their opening game with Blanco in two weeks.
“This was a good scrimmage for our offense as Gonzales plays defense much like Blanco does,” Coach Drum surmised.
The scrimmage ended with a running clock for 12 minutes as each team had a chance of running their offense and defense under game conditions.
Canyon Lake did win that battle driving 70 yards for their score while draining much of that clock in the process.
Defensively, the Hawks did give up some yardage to the spread offense but held when they needed to as Gonzales was stopped deep in CL’s territory.
The Hawks do have some size as you could see Chris Schultz on the line just by zeroing in on the largest man on either side of the ball.
“At first it was new to me, but once I got into a groove by the middle to end of the scrimmage,” Senior Schultz said in response to how he thought he did in this year’s first scrimmage. “I want to be happy with what I accomplish by the end of the season.”
Another lineman, Matthew O’Connell, was having a great season last year before an injury cut that campaign short but he will be ready to show what he will be able to do this year.
“I thought the scrimmage went well,” O’Connell started. “We will need to work hard every day in practices and give it our all.”
CL is young but that might not be all bad as they will know there will be much to prove to schools on their schedule.
“We showed them (Gonzales) in what we accomplished tonight and we can beat them even if they had 14 starters returning to our three,” O’Connell said. “I could see pain in their eyes and you could see that they were not use to our kind of offense.”
That last quip from O’Connell was in response to how an offense like the slot-T can take the wind out of opposing defenses when it is in sync like it was during the live quarter played at the end of scrimmage.
Coach Drum has said from the start on how this would be a year with several open spots on the roster and it would be up to the players to win those spots.
That philosophy will bode well as this season opens as Canyon Lake might be young and have some mistakes in the offing, but in the long run those mistakes can be overcome with good effort and a product that can be well honed in the end.
