Canyon Lake Comes Up Short in Loss to Wimberley, 24-22
Canyon Lake came up short after taking Wimberley down to the wire after failing on a 4th down play on the Texan’s 1 yard line with just 8 seconds left on the clock. That and other plays would have had The Lake with their signature win in this meeting for this Battle of the Backbone with a #4th Ranked team in 4A Division II.
But the Hawks just came up short.
“This was a great football game,” Head Coach Charley Drum stated. “We will learn from these things and coming up just short….we will learn from it and the next time we will execute. But I am proud of how well we played and this was our best offensive execution for being our first game ever.”
Canyon Lake started the last quarter up by 10 points and had the Home team looking at a 3rd down needing 19 yards to continue their drive. A 53 yard catch and run by Pruett helped the Texans get within striking distance without losing more minutes on their clock, 20-17.
The Hawks would start their next drive on the 25 yard line with 10 minutes to play.
A pass to Jesse Horner for 19 yards helped get this drive started in 4th gear getting to the 46 yard line.
Horner had his best game as a Hawk with 89 yards of total offense and leading CL rushing for 65 yards on the night.
“It just was going our way until the 4th quarter,” Horner recalled. “They just had a better 4th quarter than we did. We are thankful that this was not a district game and we will watch film and improve and bring it to our next game.”
A 2 yard run and then a motion penalty had CL needing 13 yards to continue this drive.
A fumbled snap made that yardage at 14 yards on their 3rd down play. McMullen would dance down the middle before swaying to the home teams sideline for 16 yards and now the Hawks were on Wimberley’s 42 yard line with a new set of downs.
Matt Soza needed 3 yards on that next play and did so just by inches, a first down now on the Texan’s 32 yard line.
A Horner 4 yard run and then an incompletion left The Lake needing 6 yards to continue this drive that would have put a dagger in this 4th Ranked opponent heart.
That 4th down play just came up short on a pass play to Jeremy Greene.
Wimberley would get in gear and take just 6 plays to score and now had their first lead of this game, 24-20 with just 1:36 left before the end of this thrller.
Canyon Lake showed, on this drive, that being a slot-t team will not be an automatic loss if down with time running out or if an opponent gets up more than two scores.
A running offense can find themselves in trouble since rushing plays take more time as well as not chewing up more yardage like a completed pass can.
With little time on the clock and having just one time-out would have had most Hawk faithful already cleaning their seats, searching for car keys and making sure all the kids are accounted for.
Being 75 yards away, Canyon Lake started this sojourn with two incompletions before converting a 3rd down when the Texans were assessed an interference penalty and now a first down on the Hawk’s 40 yard line.
McMullen’s 8 yard QB draw play went for 8 yards and then a 32 yard strike to Tyler Pauly set the Hawks up on Wimberley’s 20 yard line.
Derek Wiatrek was able to break the line of scrimmage on the next play for 17 yards and now needing 3 yards for a score.
Two 1 yard runs had CL looking a 3rd down and one yard needed for a go ahead score. An incompletion left just 8 seconds and a 4th down try. It would not be successful and the Hawk’s were stopped just short of this upset try.
A defensive safety still left one last chance with a kick-off return but no such luck with final, 22-24.
One of the more exciting games as this Hawk team did instill hope with their best offensive first game of the season since, The Lake, started their 2009 season and churned out 379 yards in that win over Blanco.
Canyon Lake’s first score was set up after Ryan Rivali was the recipient of a pass that allowed a 74 yard play to the Texan’s 2 yard line which had the Hawks finishing with 155 passing yardage.
There has been just 3 other games during the Slot-t era that CL has amassed that many yards passing.
QB Peyton McMullen has 3 of those 4 contests and commented, “This was one hell of a game. There is no other team I would rather be on but football is a game of inches and you just can’t win them all.”
On that big 3rd down play to Pauly, “I knew we had a first down and I just chunked it to Tyler (Pauly) and he made a big play….but this game will not defy us and we will come back better.”
That coming back better will be at home next week when La Grange comes calling as the Leopards have a 3-0 all-time record in this series.
Let’s Go Hawks!!
1 2 3 4 Final CL Hawks 7 7 6 2 22 Wimberley 0 7 3 14 24 Scoring Summary: CL-James Bates 1 yard run (Dalton Stanley kick), 1:46, 1st WH-Matt Tippe 2 yard run (Bruner kick), 8:51, 2nd CL-Jesse Horner 2 yard run (Dalton Stanley kick), 0:15, 2nd WH-Bruner 23 yard field goal, 8:58, 3rd CL-Jesse Horner 8 yard run (kick failed), 2:01, 3rd WH-Pruett 53 yard pass from Tippe (Bruner kick), 10:14, 4th WH-Marshall 8 yard pass from Tippe, Bruner kick), 1:36, 4th CL-Hawk safety -1 yards Team Stats Wimberley CL Hawks Total Offense 357 365 First Downs 21 22 Rush/Yards 24/143 49/210 Comp/Att/Int 13/22/1 7/15/0 Passing Yards 214 155 Punts/Average 1/44.0 2/35.0 Fumbles/Lost 1/1 2/0 Penalties-Yards 13-140 6-55 TOP 19:02 28:58 3rd Down Conversions 3/7 42,9% 10/16 62.5% 4th Down Conversions 1/1 100% 1/3 33% Passing Comp Att Pct Yds Int TD Peyton McMullen 7 15 .467 155 0 0 Rushing Att Yds Ave Lg TD Jesse Horner 19 65 3.4 15 2 James Bates 7 60 8.6 38 1 Peyton McMullen 7 50 7.1 22 0 Derek Wiatrek 7 33 4.7 17 0 Ryan Rivali 6 8 1.3 8 0 Matt Soza 2 4 2.0 3 0 Team 1 -10 — — 0 Receiving No Yds Ave Lg TD Ryan Rivali 1 74 74.0 74 0 Tyler Pauly 1 32 32.0 32 0 Jesse Horner 2 24 12.0 19 0 Tanner Schultz 1 14 14.0 14 0 Jeremy Greene 2 11 5.5 6 0