La Grange Leopards Can’t Change Spots Lose to Hawks, 61-23
Hawks start home schedule with big win over La Grange, 61-23. (photo by Karen Holmes)
Canyon Lake started fast and used a 33 point blitz to close their first win of the year in front of a Wuhan Virus Sold Out Hawk Nation.
Go Hawks!!
“We had people stepping up and we are already a team,” Head Coach Charley Drum said. “In that second half we started bad but we bounced back and dominated all the way through the fourth quarter. Offensively we played outstanding!”
LG started with a 3 play and punt sequence and then CL responded with a quick 82 yard drive for a, 7-0 lead that would increase to 38 points when the clock read 0:00.
That quick response would help Offensive Coordinator Troy Moses who recapped his thoughts, “I was worried because they had so much talent and I was pacing all day today. We performed well and we are getting better every week and every day!”
A Ryan Riali 58 yard first play run put CL on the Leopards 24 yard line and calmed those butterflies in Coach Moses stomach. It took 5 more plays with a Jesse Horner 6 yard touchdown run.
“I was completely focused and had my eyes set on the goal line as soon as I broke open,” Rivali stated when comparing his run to last week’s break-a-way. “We script our first 10 plays and after watching film on them I knew this play would work.”
Go Hawks!!
Horner ran and received 22 of those yards on this drive. Horner would not be finished after a busy night in finishing with 173 yards of real estate with two more Hawks joining him in that 100 yard club.
“Before the game I was wanting to hit 100 yards,” Wiatrek stated since he was coming in to help an injured James Bates’ starting spot. “As soon as I saw our line opening the hole I started taking off (on a 47 yard run)…this was pretty special.”
Rivali’s, 102 yards and Derek Wiatrek finished with 111 steps that would be the second time that a CL game would have 3 players topping that 100 yard barrier.
The Lake had a contest during the 2015 season against Marion in a shoot out loss, 50-55. That milestone happened 56 games ago and was reached by these 3 Hawksters.
Marion Game:Tanner Faris 155 yards La Grange Game: Jesse Horner 173 Austin Brennan 140 yards Derek Wiatrek 111 Micah St. John 121 yards Ryan Rivali 102 Milestones reached or stopped during this La Grange outing. 1) Stopped a 5 game losing streak 2) 652 yards of offense was the best in history 3) 61 points was 2nd most scored (63 points Eastside Memorial in 2016) 4) Hawks are back to a .500 all-time record at, 68-68. 5) The Peyton McMullen to Jeremy Greene 80 yard pass was 4th longest. 6) Peyton McMullen a QB longest run for 74 yards in Hawk history. 7) Jesse Horner is now heading the class scoring 4tds tying Henshaw for a game.
Those 4 touchdowns by Horner had him moving up the charts on points scored as he stood at 47th on that chart and after this game moved up to 20th on the Hawk All-Time scoring list.
Ben Crisp and Daniel Garcia finish off La Grange.
With that type of yardage gained had the Hawks without some very key players on the line which will underline the job those offensive lineman accomplished against these Leopards.
Two of those lineman had no subs for rest during this game and Center Ben Crisp and Guard Daniel Garcia talked about their game.
“It was the second drive when we responded and started to get momentum,” Garcia said in response to when he felt that this might be a good game for the lineman. “We just started to put our foot on the gas and with all that anger from losing last week we were not going to lose again.”
Crisp chimed in, “We came into this game all business and we don’t like losing and we did not want to become comfortable.”
On if this anger was a one game attribute? Both lineman remarked, “This will be our anger all season long!!”
Canyon Lake would recover a fumble by Dalton Stanley (the kicker) after that first score and would use 5 plays to go up 15 points on a pass play from McMullen to Kolton Ramey from 11 yards out. That was the first catch by this Junior two year starter.
La Grange did have some weapons and that was on display on their next possession when QB Caden Cooper covered 52 yards in a nano-second to get the Visitors on the board, 15-8. The drive took only 4 plays.
Both teams used defense on those next two alternating drives and then The Lake stretched their lead to 14 points when Horner scored his first of 5 touchdowns on a 50 yard run right up the middle of that Leopard’s line.
Another quick answer that took LG just 7 plays to cover 66 yards having 4 plays reaching 11 or more yards. It was a 15 yard run around the corner by D.J. Taylor who joined the Hawk trio going over 100 yards on the ground and score, 22-16.
Kolton Ramey scoring first touchdown.
With a 6 point lead and a little over six minutes remaining before half, the Hawks, would have one last chance for a score that had CL with 80 yards to pay dirt and 52 seconds before intermission.
The longest quarterback run in Hawk history was next after two hidden ball tricks that had Leopards chasing CL backs all over the field as McMullen would work on his running skills.
This play went for 72 yards as a much faster defensive backfield was able to catch the long legged McMullen on the La Grange 8 yard line.
Wiatrek had the honors scoring from 7 yards out and a 28 point half-time score and 16 for La Grange.
That 2nd Half did not start great for Canyon Lake which made their 12 point lead very tentative.
A fumble on their 2nd play of the drive had La Grange using just one play down their sideline that covered 43 yards by Taylor and with a little over one minute gone in the 2nd half had this a game again and Hawk, 28-23 advantage.
CL started their next drive on the 25 yard line and a holding call had the Hawks needing 20 yards for a first down. Two plays later it was an 80 yard pass to a wide open Greene and with a little dancing on those last 10 yards resulted in a shindig breaking out in the end zone and a 12 point lead back, 35-23.
La Grange would not have much success for the remainder of this contest after losing two more fumbles and a Hawk defense that kept up their end of the bargain in finally breaking into the win column against a school that dominated CL in their previous 3 battles.
Way to Go Hawks!!
Horner would score the next two touchdowns with his last score having 5 seconds left in that 3rd quarter.
Wiatrek had a 47 yard run on CL’s next drive and Sophomore Cole Cason 2 yard run ended that drive. That was Cason’s first time to get a snap.
The Hawks would end their evening on a 2 play drive when Junior Matt Soza started with 6 yards up the middle and then a hand-off from Sophomore QB Hunter Anderson to a Sophomore Shayne Moss resulting in a blistering 49 yard run down the sideline scoring, 61-23.
Those Leopards could not catch this Hawk on Moss’ first score and time to touch the ball.
A good game that showed depth for a Hawk team that still had some missing players that will start making their way back into the lineup as district gets closer.
“We took last week’s loss as a fire and that gives us our fuel for next week,” Rivali talked on how CL will use these first two games.
“I was fired up from last week,” Wiatrek stated. “We just had to score as much as we could and make it.”
Make it they did as La Grange left CL’s Hawk Nest in search for those spots to change into.
Go Hawks!!
1 2 3 4 Final La Grange Leopards 8 8 7 0 23 Canyon Lake Hawks 15 13 20 13 61 Scoring Summary: CL-Jesse Horner 6 yard run (Dalton Stanley kick), 7:38, 1st CL-Kolton Ramey 11 yard pass from Peyton McMullen (Wiatrek run), 4:28, 1st LG-Caden Cooper 52 yard run (Cooper run), 2:38, 1st CL-Jesse Horner 50 yard run (Dalton Stanley kick), 8:34, 2nd LG-D.J. Taylor runs for 15 yards (Cooper run), 6:06, 2nd CL-Derek Wiatrek 7 yard run (pat failed), 0:24, 2nd LG-D.J. Taylor runs for 43 yards (Hector Orona kick), 10:57, 3rd CL-Jeremy Greene 80 yard pass from Peyton McMullen (Stanley kick), 9:46, 3rd CL-Jesse Horner 8 yard run (pat failed), 2:52, 3rd CL-Jesse Horner 22 yard run (Stanley kick), 0:05, 3rd CL-Cole Cason 2 yard run (Stanley kick), 6:13, 4th CL-Shayne Moss 49 yard run (pat failed), 2:06, 4th Leopards Hawks Total Yards 347 652 First Downs 22 26 Rush/Yards 44/297 46/527 Comp/Att/Int. 5/10/0 5/7/0 Passing Yards 50 125 Punts/Average 5/39.2 2/31.0 Fumbles/Lost 4/3 1/1 Penalties-Yards 3-25 7-50 TOP 23:58 24:02 3rd Down Conversions 4/12 33% 5/7 71.4% Passing Comp Att Pct Yds Int TD Peyton McMullen 5 7 .724 125 0 2 Rushing Att Yds Ave Lg TD Jesse Horner 12 173 14.4 50 4 Derek Wiatrek 15 111 7.4 47 1 Ryan Rivali 10 102 10.2 58 0 Peyton McMullen 3 74 24.7 72 0 Shayne Moss 1 49 49.0 49 1 Matt Soza 4 16 4.0 6 0 Cole Casen 1 2 2.0 2 1 Receiving No Yds Ave Lg TD Jeremy Greene 2 80 40.0 80 1 Tyler Pauly 1 28 28.0 28 0 Kolton Ramey 1 11 11.0 11 1 Jesse Horner 1 6 6.0 6 0
