Hawk Baseball is Next on the Spring Sports Calendar
Canyon Lake’s Baseball team has not had many good year’s, record wise, since their trip to the playoffs during the 2010 season.
That team was the first Hawk team to win a first round in the playoffs and that group of players were also able to give a scare to their next opponent in taking that series in 3 games.
Back in those days, the Hawks, had some good pitching and timely hitting that allowed a chance of making noise in the playoffs.
This year’s Hawk club has a lot of similarities to the 2010 edition. The biggest being a group that found it hard to garner wins the year before as they had no Seniors that season.
Last year, Canyon Lake lost one player to graduation and also found it hard to realize victories.
Canyon Lake showed some promise as the season closed with good games and knowing if they just stayed together they might be able to move the momentum stick in their favor.
This season the people in those carpeted offices have changed some pitching rules and that will change on how many of the games will be managed while putting a premium on the athlete on the pitching mound.
Baseball will break out the gloves this coming Monday when the exhibition will commence for a week and then the season will start in earnest.
This should be an interesting year, as Canyon Lake had a bona-fide team, playing throughout the Summer and that has not been a sight seen in these parts since the Hawks started a baseball team.
With only one senior on last season’s roster, CL will have a traffic jam of players wanting to get into action as competition has a chance of helping the Hawks compete at a higher level than what has been seen during their past campaigns.
There was not a bevy of players with outstanding stats from last season, but being a year older the game has a chance of slowing down offensively and defensively for an improved product when the Hawks take the field this go round.
Cade Dunavant was moved up early during his Freshman year and produced on the field and with his bat.
A .333 batting average and an .429 on base percentage is good evidence of the potential this young man can bring to the game.
Austin Brooks and Gavin Dietrich were two players that had good production on last year’s squad as well and a bonus in supplying some Senior leadership to boot for this go-round.
This Junior class will bring several players that will have an impact as Coach Dunavant will have enough bodies to insert a substitute if the production does not come up to fruition.
That is the competition side of this game and it should help produce some interesting decisions for the Coaches during in-game action.
Pitching will be a heightened component as the UIL made some significant changes with pitch counts and mandatory rest days based on the amount of those pitch counts happen during a game.
This will make schools with less players having to choose in making the Pitcher a higher commodity in more ways than one.
Canyon Lake was not very good defensively last year and that part of the game has to improve since a batter reaching base on a fielding error will then induce the pitcher having to have make more pitches and a chance of having another substitution earlier than needed.
The Hawks gave up 172 runs last season and 105 of those scores were earned. That translates to 39% of those runs were not earned and that will always add up to more losses.
CL also had more walks than strikeouts and putting runners on base via walk will add to the pitch count while spelling doom in many innings by prolonging and allowing rally’s to put a game away.
Pitching and fielding will play on each other (pardon the pun) and having command of that part of the game. This will help in getting the Hawks into better game situations.
A lot of fun is in store as the Coaches will have a lot of Jethro Bodine calculating in the dugout in hopes to have a successful season.
A 5 team district makes it simple to calculate as you only have to be better than one team in order to have a chance of ordering Playoff T-Shirts!!
Go Hawks!!