First Week of Hawk Practices comes to a Close
Canyon Lake’s football season had their first intra-squad scrimmage this past Saturday as the first week of practice came to a close.
Senior Matt Adams will be all over the field as he looks to add running back to his resume
The Hawks will be a young team this year after losing 25 seniors on graduation day and returning 8 offensive/defensive starters from last season.
Good news is how well the Junior Varsity squad played in 2014 and a loaded Sophomore class that will more than be ready to take their next step in replacing those players.
“Were young,” Head Coach Charley Drum stated after the scrimmage. “We look young and we were a good JV team today….but we had a good week of practice and we are now in the process of finding the pieces for this year’s team.”
Canyon Lake will go into their third year of the slot-T and that will help this young group of players in their adjustment time.
“The play book has expanded for the younger players,” Coach Drum said. “We will be very physical and we have never been this deep and we will have some good competition.”
Coach Drum was commenting on how fired up the Freshman and Sophomores played when they took the field against each other in todays practice.
This Freshman team won district during their 8th grade season while the Sophomore were near the top when they played at Mountain Valley and finished their freshman campaign with a solid, 8-1 year.
Another good sign is watching last year’s JV team that had a solid year while improving from a tied game during their freshman year to a very solid 6-3 record in 2014.
The improvement was evident as this group will now look to take Canyon Lake further, when the games start in just a few weeks.
“We want to go further than two rounds,” Senior Robert Woods said. “I know we can as we just need to be out there and give 100% on every play.”
Woods was an instrumental part of last year’s team as he finished the season rushing for 717 yards while also accumulating 4 Sacks in a limited defensive action.
Woods will go into this season standing at 7th place in tackles for a loss (14) and 3rd place with 8 sacks and only 3 sacks away from passing J. Garrett Grooms for second place on that list.
“I feel we are brothers out there and that will help, as we start this year,” Woods finished. “We are going to work harder on our weaknesses and that will help us get a jump start on not starting slow this season.”
Canyon Lake has had problems in those first few games of the season in starting slow and not jelling until later in the campaign.
Another key this year will be watching on how well Senior Linebacker, Haden Lee performs in leading the Hawk defense.
“We need to teach the younger guys how to play varsity as the speed and intensity will be different and they will have to play big,” Senior Lee bellowed. “The Seniors will need to be role models.”
Lee also said he wanted to break 100 tackles this season as he stands, 11th place in tackles for loss and resides at 7th place on the all-time tackle list going into this year’s games with 136. A decent year will have this young man firmly in second place on the list below.
Top Ten Tackles Total Last Year 1. Bobby Flint 435 2010 2. Jeremy Best 181 2011 3. Austin Acosta 176 2014 4. Chris Kopecky 164 2010 5. McGuire Johnson 162 2013 6. Isaac Pruna 138 2011 7. Haden Lee 136 2015 8. Brandon Berger 128 2012 9. Alex Kemp 126 2011 10. Matt Noyola 123 2011 17. Matt Adams 101 2015
Another Senior, Matt Adams will bring some moxie to the defensive backfield as his speed will make a difference in the special teams too.
Adams had two kick-off returns for touchdowns last year while also finishing with 100 tackles on defense.
Being all over the place will be in Adam’s future as this scrimmage had another role for Adams, in the offensive back field.
With the loss of Josh DeVries, Adams might be one of those missing ingredients that could help fill the void with his speed on that side of the ball.
“I have paid attention a lot to the offense last year and with more reps on offense, I think I can help the team,” Adams said confidently. “I’m excited for this year and I want to go further than the Second Round.”
That seems to be an observation by many of these players for this year.
“I’ll be starting on defense but we will need to come down to our pre/game and be more focused,” Adams said while commenting on the slow starts that have plagued the Hawks in previous seasons.
Canyon Lake will now go into their second week while they welcome Gonzales this coming Friday for their first scrimmage and a chance to hit a player with a different color jersey.
The Blanco game is the end of this month and a good time to come out and support this year’s edition of Canyon Lake football.
Go Hawks!!
