CL Hawks Freshman Bury Vandergrift Vipers, 33-20

                                                     CL Hawks Freshman dispose of Vandergrift, 33-20.

Canyon Lake’s Freshman team continues their winning ways after holding off the Vandergrift Vipers with a, 33-20 win.

                   Way to Go Hawks!!

Austin LBJ could not field a Freshman team, so the Hawks were able to coax the Vipers to the hill-country and the welcome mat was not rolled out after starting the game scoring the first 27 points before Vandy could find the Hawk’s end-zone.

CL started the game with their first possession and it took 8 plays covering 64 yards when Kaiden Lewis scored on a 5 yard run for that first score.

This drive was dominated by the running from James Garza who touched the ball on half of those plays for 38 yards.

The Freshman Defense was solid in this first half after the Viper’s 4 possessions had 3 punts and the end of the first half. That translated to giving up 40 yards of real estate and a 20 point lead for the Home Team.

One pass for a touchdown as Ryder Hopper who returned from his injury and threw a strike to Carter Williams for 24 yards and a two touchdown lead (at the time) on the first play of the 2nd quarter.

Vandergrift started the 2nd half like they ended the first two quarters with a punt and it took CL Freshman just two plays to score when Williams third and final carry of the day went for 44 yards. The play before had Garza break the 100 yard barrier on his 18 yard bruising run.

VV had their first score on their next possession traveling 69 yards which was 4 yards less than what the Viper’s had accumulated for the game up to this point of the game.

The Lake would respond with a Grant Snowden 8 yard run capping a 63 yard drive and leading, 33-7.

Vandy would score twice more after capitalizing on a Hawk fumble and final score, 33-20, but Canyon Lake was the team administering most of the pain in this game.

On one Viper drive, Jesiah Rodriguez helped encourage the Visitor receivers to have alligator arms after clocking a Viper that knocked the ball out of the unsuspecting players hands.

“After I hit him, I did not think he would fall like that, so I just looked at him after the hit,” Rodriguez recounted. “I was just filling a hole but we made some good plays and we will need to eliminate some of our mistakes and capitalize and not let teams come back.”

Jesiah Rodriguez, Chris Taber and Matthew Elson contributed to another Hawk Freshman win!

Matthew Elson was another player playing with a lot of confidence, “I can push people around now that I have more strength and speed…that has made my playing kind of nice. When I’m pulling I can just knock players down easier and that makes it exciting when I see our running backs running by me for some big gains.”

That shows how much this group of players have improved during this season with hopes of finishing first in district.

“Everybody has improved,” Chris Taber said excitedly. “We are working way harder with everybody playing with the right mind set which makes playing easy…and our Coaches have helped.”

Certainly has been a team showing more resolve as district play continues next week when the Taylor Ducks come quacking into the Hawk Nest.

Way to Go Hawks!!

                    1  2  3  4  Final
Vandergrift Vipers  0  0  7 13  20
CL Hawks Freshman   7 13  7  6  33
Scoring Summary:
CL-Kaiden Lewis 5 yard run (Rylan Oppelt kick), 6:41, 1st
CL-Carter Williams 24 yard pass from Ryder Hopper (Rylan Oppelt kick), 8:32, 2nd
CL-James Garza one yard run (pat failed), 0:30, 2nd
CL-Carter Williams 44 yard run (Rylan Oppelt kick), 6:32, 3rd
VV-#25 one yard run (pat good), 2:13, 3rd
CL-Grant Snowden 8 yard run (pat failed), 6:09, 4th
VV-Viper 12 yard pass (pass failed), 3:35, 4th
VV-#12 one yard run (pat good), 0:55, 4th

Team Stats        Vipers       Hawks
Total Yards       236          296
First Downs       12           15
Rush/Yards        25/128       35/272
Comp/Att/Int      9/12/0       1/2/0
Passing Yards     108          24
Punts/Average     4/23.0       1/54.0
Fumbles/Lost      0/0          2/1
Penalties-Yards   2-16         6-50

Passing           Comp  Att   Pct  Yds  Int  TD
Ryder Hopper      1     2    .500  24   0    1

Rushing           Att  Yds   Ave   Lg   TD
James Garza       14   108   7.7   18   1
Carter Williams    3    56  18.7   44   1
Grant Snowden      5    40   8.0   19   1
Kaiden Lewis       4    36   9.0   15   1
Ravi Singh         3    11   3.7    5   0
Talan Smith        1    10  10.0   10   0
Jesiah Rodriguez   2     8   4.0    8   0
Timothy Mollenkoph 1     4   4.0    4   0
Robert Ellis       1     3   3.0    3   0
Ryder Hopper       1    -4    —     -   0
Totals            35   272   7.8   44   4

Receiving         No   Yds   Ave   Lg   TD
Carter Williams    1    24  24.0   24   1