Pre/Game: Canyon Lake @ Austin Akins

Tanner Faris needs to tuck in his shirt.                    (Photo by Karen Holmes)

      Pre/Game:     Canyon Lake     @    Austin Akins    7:00pm
                    Hawks 3-2            Eagles 2-2
      Series History:
      First game between these two schools.

                         This Year Results:
       Hawks   40     Blanco    07       Eagles   40   Crockett      13
       Hawks   42     Reagan    16       Eagles   39   Austin High   27
       Hawks   21     Giddings  34       Eagles   07   Lehman        42
       Hawks   21     Wimberley 31       Eagles   07   McCallum      17
       Hawks   42     Lampasas  34
                   ===================================

Canyon Lake will be going into new territory on Thursday as the Hawks will play their first 6A school when they travel to Burger Stadium in play Austin Akins.

Hill Country Furnishings says way to go Hawks

The Eagles had an open date last week which will add another ornament on the tree of how CL will attempt compete with a team two classes larger.

Akins is on a two game losing streak after starting the season 2-0 with wins over two teams that have a combined 1-9 record. However that sounds familiar to CL’s schedule as they too started their season 2-0 and those two teams now sport a 2-8 slate.

The Eagles offense has averaged 15 passes a game and 92 yards through the air. That comes to 6 yards per attempt and Akins will have 3 players that will dominate the reception of those throws.

Roshan Ford, Kenan Lockhart, and Victor Salas are all right under 100 yards for the year as Lockhart leads in number of catches with 9 for this season.

On the ground, the Eagles, have two players that have made their presence known with that same player, Lockhart leading with 425 yards on the ground. Lockhart is 46% of the Eagles offense so simple math would give you an idea of how this game will go.

               Go Hawks

Stop Lockhart and that will give Canyon Lake the best chance for pulling off a win. Akins has another rusher, Demarcus Cabezas, that has totaled 361 yards and will be just as lethal as the rushing game seems to be their best way of establishing their offense.

Cabezas is the QB and that will give the Hawks two games in a row where the quarterback had established a good run game to go with his passing.

The good news was how the Hawks took that part of the game from Lampasas last week and controlled their rushing. CL’s pass defense is what suffered last week defensively as the rush defense held tight and limited the Badgers.

A repeat of last week’s game would be good news as Akins seems to be more adept in the run over their passing game through those first 4 games. In Akins two losses both of their opponents did take control of the Eagles offense and did not allow the Cabezas to get loose.

Canyon Lake will be as good as the offensive line can control the line of scrimmage. The Hawks had gone 6 consecutive quarters of below average rushing. CL had over 200 yards rushing in the first half of the Giddings game only to be shut down in the second half while Wimberley continued that swoon and held the Hawks to their worst rushing game since they started with the Slot-T offense.

Lakeside Dog Grooming                Says Go Hawks!!

Last week Canyon Lake established the run and had a decent passing game as QB Ben Fulton completed all three of his passes but when you add the two interference calls then you could also deduce another 30 yards and 2 first downs on those plays for a good use of spreading out their passing game.

Canyon Lake does have a decent chance of coming out on top in this Thursday game but they will need to continue to control the trenches on both sides of the ball. Getting more turnovers would also be a key in this game as the Eagles had 7 fumbles in one of their losses but Akins only lost 2 of them.

But a fumble is a lost play on many occasions and will many times leave an offense with a long 3rd down play to keep a drive going. Any little thing will be a big thing when you are playing a school in this classification no matter what their record will be.

The Hawks have 3 running backs that have performed well this season and picking which one that might get the rock is always a guessing game for a defense facing a Slot-T offense.

The ReSporter will take a wild guess and say that this might be the first time Akins has faced this sort of offense and that would be a huge advantage no matter the team….the big question would then go back to the offensive line and how they control and open holes for their backs.

Watching on how that develops as this game unfolds will be the key on how this game might transpire.

Go Hawks!!