Canyon Lake Baseball Time to Shine in Game with Sinton
This week will say a lot about, what, where, and who, this Hawk team is at this stage of this season.
Canyon Lake has had a lofty two year record, 27-6 that has actually spanned a one year time frame.
Some different players in some areas but for the most part a still young team that can make a name for themselves based on a Friday game in Sinton this week.
This Pirate team has been ranked from 1st to 3rd place based on several polls around the state.
In many ways these two teams have a similar makeup with a heavy dose of sophomores and with Sinton their biggest Soph is a pitcher, Braeden Brown, who is getting a lot of looks from several schools. As a Freshman, Brown was 5-0 with an 0.81 era and has started in that same vein early this season.
These Pirates are already playing district games and presently tied with Rockport-Fulton with 3-0 record. In fact, Sinton has shut out 4 of their last 5 opponents and in that other contest gave up just 2 runs in a loss to Austin Bowie.
There has been two schools that the Hawks and Pirates have played, Gonzales being the only one game during regular season and the Cuero contest being an exhibition battle for the Hawks.
Sinton CL Hawks Cuero Won 6-0 Won 19-6 Gonzales Won 10-0 Won 14-8
Exhibition games are just that and you can read all you want into that comparison.
This contest will show where CL is in going into district play next week.
Boerne has shown they will be a high hurdle to clear, actually this team might be a pole vault jump as the Greyhounds have a mental advantage as a team that expects to take care of the Hawks as has been the case throughout this series since day one.
Fredericksburg is presently on a 3 game winning streak against some good teams. Wins over Benbrook, 13-2 (State Ranked 4th in the THSB poll), an 8-2 win over Llano who are picked to win their district and State Ranked in 3A this season, and San Antonio Christian, 8-5 who The Lake has also beaten this season.
Davenport will not be a pushover as they have compiled a decent, 9-6-1 record. After losing their first 4 games this Wolf team has worked a 9-2-1 slate with some common opponents.
One of those two set-backs was against a team CL had problems with as SA Johnson scored a 14-4 victory over Davenport after beating your Hawks, 7-0 a day earlier.
Wimberley will be the first out of the gate team for Canyon Lake to play next week. These Texans have wielded a decent, 7-3-3 record thus far.
The two best battles the Texans had were both ties with a, 6 all game with state ranked 5A Austin McCallum Knights and tying Benbrook, 5-5 who we talked about earlier with Fredericksburg above.
Tough district for a Canyon Lake team to see ‘What’ they can do as this question was left unanswered last year after a season that was halted before district had a chance to get started.
On paper, last year’s group was on a run with just two one run losses and not allowing a team to score more than 3 runs against them and a good defense and pitching crew.
‘How’ will the Hawks take this year and make it special? That remains to be seen but some good things so far is seeing how the Sophomores who played as Freshman last year have grown up and been a very successful class in any sport and will do anything to get a win.
A phrase used way to often is a team saying, ‘They do not like to lose.’ Well in this case this team makes those necessary protocols to prevent a loss from beating them twice.
How will CL handle those Boerne Greyhounds that have several skins on their scoreboard and come into any season with a chip on their shoulder that many times will never be taken or knocked off.
Freddie and Wimberley have had success out the wazoo against the Hawks and changing that mindset will be paramount for this team as those district battles get going next Tuesday.
This week’s game is against a Sinton team that could be compared to those, Greyhounds…Billies…and Texans.
Seeing how this Lake team performs on Friday might be a good indication on how District 28-4A race might come together.
Time will tell…Go Hawks!!