Pre/Game: Canyon Lake Hawks vs. Liberty Hill Panthers

Senior Austin Brennan is off to the races against Taylor.                 (mjrphotog.com)

                 Pre/Game: Liberty Hill  vs. Canyon Lake         Bi-District 7:30pm
                           Panthers (6-3)    Hawks (7-3)         @ Liberty Hill

                          History: The Panthers lead this series 3-1.
                           2008    Hawks 00 Panthers 56
                           2009    Hawks 14 Panthers 07
                           2014    Hawks 14 Panthers 19
                           2015    Hawks 07 Panthers 31

                                     This Years Results:
          Hawks 40  Blanco          07
          Hawks 42  Aus Reagan      16       Panthers 30  La Vernia     00
          Hawks 21  Giddings        34       Panthers 30  Brownwood     29
          Hawks 21  Wimberley       31       Panthers 12  Calhoun       26
          Hawks 42  Lampasas        34       Panthers 41  Aus Anderson  10
          Hawks 42  Aus Akins       20       Panthers 20  La Vega       34
          Hawks 63  Aus Eastside    00       Panthers 27  Lampamsas     16
          Hawks 41  Boerne          38       Panthers 44  Burnet        23
          Hawks 45  Fredericksburg  25       Panthers 10  China Spring  42
          Hawks 44  Taylor          50       Panthers 30  Gatesville    15

         ==================================================================

   Italian Garden Says Go Hawks!

Canyon Lake will embark on their 3rd straight year of having a playoff season, as the Hawks will face a very tough Liberty Hill Panther team this Friday at Liberty Hill.

First off, The ReSporter was only able to get stats for the Panthers on all of their games but two and so in comparison to CL where we have all 10 games of numbers the Panther numbers need to have this factored in.

LH is averaging 352 yards per game and just like the Hawks, most of that yardage is gained on the ground. Just so you remember that this school is a big-time Slot-T offense and hence Canyon Lake will be looking in the mirror in preparing for this Bi-District tilt.

Most of Liberty Hill’s passing yardage was accomplished in their win over Burnet as they have a 34 yard average via the airways. In that Burnet game, LH had 110 yards passing which is 40% of this season of games.

So a lot of running backs but the leading receiver having caught 3 passes for the season which makes the Hawks look like Texas Tech’s Air Raid offense.

       Go Hawks

Liberty Hill comes out of the toughest district in 4A Division as they have had 2 and sometimes 3 teams in the top 10 this season on a regular bases.

District 13-4A has a chance of sweeping the Hawk’s district and that would not surprise any of the prognosticators in Texas that keeps up with Friday Night Lights.

The Hawks are on a 2 game losing streak with LH and CL will look to change that stat. Losing a coin flip for home field will have the Hawks in a bigger hole as they will attempt to take the Panthers out of the playoffs on their on turf.

Canyon Lake finished their season with a gut wrenching loss to Taylor as this was the second contest this season that had the Hawks in the lead coming out of their half-time session. The Ducks have had a habit of winning close games in this series and last week was no exception in that regard.

The question for CL is how will they respond to that loss and how will the defense respond. The good news is that the district finish allowed the Hawks to draw a team they might have a better chance of defending since LH has the same offense and giving the Hawks pass defensive unit a rest. Having a team that throws a bevy of passes would play against the Hawk’s weakness (pass defense) and facing a running school playing into the Hawk’s strength. (run defense)

Can the Hawks keep up their scoring offense? (40 points per game) If CL can have defensvie stops, then that would help make this game go in the visitors favor. That is a big if.

                   Last 2 years of Game Stats vs. Liberty Hill

                   total offense                  total defense
 2014                  305                            336
 2015                  126                            304
                    rush offense                   rush defense
 2014                  208                            308
 2015                   76                            284
                   passing offense               passing defense
 2014                   97                             28
 2015                   50                             20

What you can take from those numbers above is seeing that LH does not need the pass in order to win games with the Hawks.

Dave’s Dirtworks says throw some Dirt on the Panthers

Canyon Lake had their best chance in that 2014 season when their loss was by 5 points as the Hawks were threatening in those waning moments in that contest.

The Hawks’ passing game has improved by leaps and bounds since those last two battles with the Panthers and the Slot-T has also been a huge benefit this year as this crew of Hawks seem to be going strong since the Wimberley game.

Canyon Lake certainly has a chance of upsetting the Hill and this should be a battle of seeing which Slot-T is the best Slot-T in this battle. So the obvious stat to watch for would be turnovers as that is a killer when there are two teams that practice the same clock draining offensive strategy.

Can the Hawks defense perform better than LH? That is the question and the winner of this battle will have the upper hand of having an opportunity in planning their next week’s game.

This week should be fun to see if Canyon Lake has progressed far enough to give the Panthers all they can handle in their back yard.

Go Hawks!!!