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
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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!!!
