Pre/Game: Smithville Tigers vs. CL Hawks

 Smithville Tigers  @  Canyon Lake Hawks      September 5th 7:30pm

 History: Hawks and Tigers have not played.

 This Season's Games:
 Canyon Lake  7  Blanco  35       Smithville  0   Rockdale    49

The Hawks will try to get a bad taste out of their mouth this week when they take on Smithville.

The Tigers did not have a good start to their season either and with two schools starting on the wrong foot, you will have two teams that will come out with a strong desire to change and get on the winning side of the ledger.

First Smithville, the Tigers were not very good on their opening day as they finished with no points, with no completions in their passing game, and a running game that could only muster two yards per play.

QB Garrett Mathis finished with negative 25 yards which would translate to enough sacks that HEB might be missing their allotment and not giving customers a paper or plastic option.

Running backs, Austin Green, Sean Moyer, Dameon Zepeda and Jake Dawson all finished with 18 to 35 yards rushing. Moyer had the best night of the four, with over five yards per carry.

Smithville’s defense had their problems too, in giving up over 500 yards with the majority of that real estate being gained through the air (414 yds).

When your best weapon is in the form of the punting formation, then you know it was not a good night. The Tigers had a 39 yard average per punt but that really just translated to more yardage that Rockdale could cover on their way for a score.

Canyon Lake is not in a position that they can snicker at those numbers as the Hawks were not much better with their game with Blanco.

Smithville ended with 92 total yards compared to the Hawks 158 yards.

Six of the seven touchdowns scored on Smithville was through the air and if CL can find a passing game, then that might be a way of breaking the Tigers’ for this night.

Rockdale had just 95 yards running which might suggest that Smithville’s best unit would be against the run.

Smithville had just one turnover and that bodes well as this team made their opponent play the whole field with no short scoring drives. Rockdale had just one score that did not cover more than 10 yards on those scoring plays.

Can the Hawks be opportunistic and make some long plays?

Last week the longest play covered 40 yards on a pass play to Evan Schuller with CL’s longest run covering 13 yards.  That run happened on their scoring drive which had Blanco guessing on defense for the only time during the game.

Last year, Canyon Lake started in a similar fashion against Blanco only to break out of their funk with a whale of a game in Somerset.

The big three of McGuire Johnson, Hayden Dubois, and Josh DeVries ran for 199, 79, and 92 yards in that game. That allowed your Hawks to score 35 points and if not for an electrical storm, might have translated into a win.

Momentum was lost in that delay but the simple fact is that Somerset had that same delay. No excuses, but the main point was how much different Canyon Lake looked compared to their opening game just a week earlier.

Canyon Lake needs a win and with the injuries, this game will be huge in establishing a team that can improve as District 14-4A comes a calling next month.

Go Hawks!!