CL Baseball secures #3 on the Top 15 Countdown

            Avery Montgomery takes care of Bandera bats in sweep             (photo by Karen Holmes)

Last year, Canyon Lake’s Boys Soccer, was a high water mark for a program that had not had a ton of success and they finally broke that barrier when they went to the Regional round during the post-season. That was done on their 2nd year of making the post-season.

That is the major reason for having this year’s Baseball Team getting this 3rd Place nod for the Top 15 Countdown.

                              HAWK TOP 15 COUNTDOWN
                          15. Volleyball win over Wimberley in Bi-District
                          14. Girl’s Basketball beating Boerne Champion
                          13. Boy’s Basketball win over Wimberley
                          12. CL’s Football Bi-District win over Gatesville
                          11. Hawk Ladies Track & Field Season
                          10. Canyon Lake Football defeating an undefeated Boerne
                           9. Softball sweeping Navarro in their Bi-District contest
                           8. Girl’s Basketball Region win over Sealy
                           7. Softball Road win over Fredericksburg
                           6. Lady Basketball win over Billies has CL enjoying a 1st place finish
                           5. Boy’s Track & Field Area Meet
                           4. Taylor Football District Win!!
                           3. Baseball Bandera Series-Clinches Playoff Spot

Don Chente says Way to Go Hawk Baseball.

No, this Hawk Baseball team did not go far in the playoffs but this was a case of not having many people even thinking of a playoff spot when the season would commence.

The ReSporter can give you an idea of how many in the Hawk Nation would have had this team making the playoffs. The Coaches, team, and some of the selected parent’s would have let us know that they would be buying T-Shirts stating that very fact.

After winning 3 games the year before and still having a young group of men playing would give you an idea of how lofty a goal of beating one district opponent for a chance of a playoff game did not seem to have a lot of talk.

Here are some thoughts from Head Coach Victor Escamilla on this subject, “Coach Lancaster and I had a lot of fun coaching these guys this year. We had our ups and downs but the sun always came up the next morning. Some days it was a bit brighter and some days not. One of out team goals was to make the play-offs and we did it. We now turn to next year and build from what we learned this past season. Congrats to the Hawks of 2018 and time to turn to the Hawks of 2019! Go Hawks!”

Some humble words spoken by the Coach, but it is up to The ReSporter, to put some more ornaments on that tree on what this turn around season entailed.

Several years of bad luck with injuries and not a large pool of players with experience would be good starters.

               Way to Go Hawks!!

Coach Escamila stated when play was just starting, that this Hawk team, would have to manufacture runs. That was a truism as CL finished the season with a .217 batting average but that number shows how adept this team was in getting on base as their on base percentage was a respectable, .368 for the year.

There were 6 players that finished the year with double digit walks and that number was helped when the opposing teams would hit 27 players with a pitch, helping that average go higher.

            name                base on balls     hit by pitch     total     obp
            Matt Anderson            18               6             24      .500
            Caleb Williams           20               4             24      .451
            Brandon Robinson         10               1             11      .435
            Ethan Slater              7               0              7      .435
            JT Greene                25               0             25      .393
            Drew Tyra                12               1             13      .350
            CJ Parrish                9               6             15      .315
            Lee Stafford             10               2             12      .293

Italian Garden Says Way to Go Hawks!!

CL had enough players that had a knack for getting on base, that a lofty team batting average, was not needed in order in making the playoffs.

Yes, improving those batting averages would have certainly helped but there are Hawks that found ways to keep an inning going for runs.

Canyon Lake was blessed with a pitcher (Avery Montgomery) that was called to the mound and finished with half of the innings thrown and finished with 6 wins for the year and tied Cody Powell with 8 wins for his career. That is good for a 2nd place behind Cody Breest who finished his career with 11 wins back during the 2010 season.

Montgomery was nails on the mound and when he was on, then you would be able to get maximum innings from this workhorse. Strikes were thrown often and keeping that pitch-count down in the double digits was a thing of beauty.

During the two game sweep of Bandera, Montgomery had a pretty salty stat line that was needed for helping this sweep of the Bulldogs.

                    ip  h  r er bb so  era
Avery Montgomery    14 12  5  4  2 14  2.00

pitches-strikes:    158-123

Putting those two games in perspective is pretty simple. A two game total of 158 pitches which had a percentage of 77% of those throws resulting in a strike.

The ReSporter has the link to the Senior Night game win over Bandera that clinched a playoff berth.

Baseball’s Senior Night is Successful with Sweep over Bandera, 8-5

GO HAWKS!!