Coaches Corner with Canyon Lake’s Charley Drum.

The ReSporter: Hey Coach, what are your overall thoughts after the first scrimmage against Gonzales?

Head Coach Charley Drum

Coach Drum: “I thought we responded well to adversity, our offense did not start well and then they scored on their first play. We had an open 12 minute quarter and our offense took the ball for a score while taking 11 minutes off the clock. Then our defense held them to a 3 and out series. I don’t think they will be wanting to scrimmage us again since we did not give them much time to work.

I like how our kids responded and showed mental toughness early in this season.”

The ReSporter: Did you find out anything about your defensive backs and other players?

Coach Drum: “Well, we came out of the game healthy and we tackled well. We had some players that got some separation. All of our defensive line tackled well for a first scrimmage.”

The ReSporter: What will you be working on as you get ready for next week’s scrimmage on Thursday? (more…)

Coaches Corner with Bracken’s Head Coach Lloyd Fields

The ReSporter: Well Coach you will be playing your first scrimmage tomorrow and so what would be your

Head Coach Lloyd Fields

thoughts going into this game?

Coach Fields: “Mystery, I have no idea of where this team is because of not having enough players to go full tilt. That causes us to be more careful for practice because we cannot afford any injuries.

In 2009 we had some mystery because we graduated a bus load of players. This year we are replacing five seniors from last year’s squad and of those five players four of them went both ways.”

The ReSporter: How many players will be suited up?

Coach Fields: “We have 11 players and two of those students will be limited tomorrow. In the last two years we have had 13 and 11 players and eight of those were starters. We will need to develop some young guys to give us depth.”

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Hawks enjoying the Heat as Wednesday’s practice draws to a close.

Hawk Football is underway as Canyon Lake completed their third day of practices this Wednesday.

The ReSporter had some time with Head Coach Charley Drum and wanted to share some of his thoughts for this upcoming season.

The ReSporter: Where is your team at this time compared to last year?

Coach Drum: “We are way ahead on the offensive side of the ball.”

The ReSporter: I noticed your practice today ending with some work on special teams. The way you had some games lost based on that part of the game, is this a new emphasis?

Coach Drum: “Actually, we were trying to install a new offense last season, so we did not have a chance to spend as much time with special teams. We are finding that we can have more time to concentrate on special teams this year.”

The ReSporter: This time last year you did not have a kicker to count on and then Thorpe took that part of your game starting in your second game. How is that going this season? (more…)

This is The ReSporter’s last Coaches Corner for Softball as we find out about the season that just finished.

Head Softball Coach John Gallagher

The ReSporter: What are some areas that you will wanting these girls to work on as we wait for their opening next season?

Coach Gallagher: “I want each player to work on the basics. Throwing properly, accurately with confidence, along with their hitting/bunting. The speed and agility workouts. I would also hope that we have many girls playing in the summer. This is huge when you can play softball for six months or more compared to three during the school year.”

The ReSporter: How do you assess this past year in comparing Regular Season vs. District Season?

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Coaches Corner with Softball Coach John Gallagher

The ReSporter: Thanks for spending time with us, How do you manage girls with

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slumps that are in your line-up? Is it based on years of experience on whether you move the player up or down? How much does speed play a percentage of what you would do?

Coach Gallagher: “Slumps happen to everyone. You just hope its not more than one player at a time and that it is only for a short period of time.

Moving the batting order depends on how a player responds in given situations such as not hitting when runners are on base or moving speed up or down based on who’s hitting behind them.

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Canyon Lake finished district play with four wins when the Hawks took a, 1-0 victory over Wimberley last

Parziale’s Pizza says Go Hawks!!

Friday.

“I am very proud of the team and our accomplishments,” Head Coach Erich Robinson started. “I think this might be a school record, if not a record for myself and Coach Paisley, as far as first year Varsity Girls’ Soccer Coaches.”

The Hawks finished the sweep when they made a Christy Fowler first half goal stand with a great defensive effort with Tiffany Laurent kept all attempts at goal a losing proposition.

“Wow, it was a ‘nail bitter’, Coach Robinson said. “I was really proud of my girls, they did not back down or give up.”

Canyon Lake’s goal in the first half stood up as being good enough in this contest.

“It was a tough first half, sunny and against the wind,” Coach Robinson continued. “I had hoped to score more in the second half, but we held them to accomplish our goal-a victory.”

This win will allow the Hawks to line up against Boerne Champion for Bi-District this week after finishing in 3rd Place in District.

Champion finished in 2nd in their district setting up this first round of action.

“I think we have a big challenge against Boerne Champion,” Robinson said succinctly. “I also believe that we can accomplish what we put our minds to…..We only have one day to practice and I want to bring them (Champion) a game and not just play defense.”

The Hawks have a well balanced team this year with almost the same amount players for each of the classes.

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The ReSporter: When you have a very quick player to lead off and can get on

Head Softball Coach John Gallagher

with a bunt, why do you bat Robinson first, when she has an opportunity to have players on base more and using her bat to knock then in?

Coach Gallagher: “I look at first, a player that can consistency get on and Alexis Robinson has a high percentage of getting a base hit. When you use a player that bunts well and has speed the defense can read that and play in more. With that player (DuBois) in the two hole you have the ability to slap, bunt, hit, and get that runner over without having to give up an out. It also puts more pressure on the defense not knowing how to play that hitter. Your leadoff hitter after the first at bat usually does not lead off more than once more, and we try to put speed in the 9th spot so she can hit in the bottom of the order. We also try to put contact hitters toward the bottom of the lineup to help with getting on base.”

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The ReSporter wanted to get with Head Softball Coach John Gallagher as this season

Head Softball Coach John Gallagher

starts this week in the Navarro Tournament.

The ReSporter: What type of team (young or old) is hindered the most wen losing games because ow weather?

Coach John Gallagher: “I am not sure it affects either any differently because it’s so early on that everyone is looking to get as much work as they can before starting games. Obviously, it has hampered us by not having good weather to get in the work we need.”

The ReSporter: With a bad week of weather, how do you work on the basic skills these girls need to progress?

Coach John Gallagher: “With bad weather we spent three days outside working on throwing, fielding, and bunting. Getting used to the cold weather was the goal. We stressed playing in these type of conditions you need to be sure-handed and stay moving. One day we spent in the gym working on hitting and bare-hand catching with softie balls as well as catching up on conditioning.”

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Peyton Sipila returning to improve on last year’s season.

Hawk Baseball officially started their season with a scrimmage with Llano last Tuesday night at the Canyon Lake Diamond.

This will be a year where Head Coach Trent Dunavant will need to use a calculator in counting the number of players in his dugout.

“I don’t know….35?,” Coach Dunavant stated when asked how many players he had practicing and wanting to play this year. “We will carry around 14-15 for Varsity and over 20 for Junior Varsity.”

Coach Dunavant had a long pause when asked that question of players wanting to play, as in the past few years, those questions could easily been answered by looking at both hands and counting fingers.

Last year, Canyon Lake started a wave of players that started to influx this sport and the Hawks still had several players that had Sophomore besides their name giving you a hint of age.

Now those Sophomores will be classified as Juniors and that might hopefully translate into victories for a program that had not made the playoffs in three years.

“We will have competition on this team and that will be something that should make them better,” Coach Dunavant fielded. “We have more optimism than in the past and we will have multiple guys playing multiple positions.”

The Hawks seemed to be strong in the infield and will have more qualified players for those spots this season.

“We have infielders that will be able to compete for outfield positions if they can’t win their spot in the infield,” Dunavant said without error. “This was our first scrimmage and we had some things good and bad. We found things that need working on, and things that the kids retained from last year.”

“We did ok playing defense but bats are slower than pitching at this time of year and pitchers are mainly throwing fast balls.”

Catcher will be a position to keep an eye on as the Hawks lost a big bat and fielder when Michael Brady got his diploma last May.

“We had Kyle Krohn play a nice game yesterday and he will be fighting this position out with Bryce Dehlin and Colton Avey,” Coach Dunavant commented. “Peyton Sipala will be able to play anywhere, left field, first base, short stop…”

The pitching will have several players ready for their chance to make things happen….if you take one thing from Coach Dunavant on pitching, it is throw strikes.

“We walked way to many players last night,” Dunavant said. “If you throw strikes in high school, then nine times out of ten the batter will find a way to get out.”

“Throwing harder does not mean you can pitch, sometimes throwing an 85 mile per hour pitch down the middle will not do as well as a pitcher that throws a 75 mph pitch on the corner,” Dunavant reiterated.

When asked about what they would be looking for in finding a closer for this club, Coach Dunavant did not hesitate, “A closer is not afraid of failure and it is how they approach their game mentally and having pin point control. If they (pitchers) can’t throw strikes then they won’t be out there.”

“I want to be around four to five pitchers when district rolls around,” Coach Dunavant closed. “We have more athletic kids than positions this year.”

Canyon Lake will be wearing their coats this Friday as the weather could be frigid if Seguin does not help in changing the game to Saturday.

If that happens, then CL will be playing in Seguin rather than at Canyon Lake.

The ReSporter knows that Seguin is warmer than CL since it is so much further South.

Should be a good season…hopefully the season will end later in the year when temperatures get much warmer…thanks Coach and good luck.

With the storm of waiting for Re-Alignment comes lightning for coaches as they have to be ahead of the game in putting their schedule together.

Many times a non-district game can become a district game based on what the UIL in moving schools to different locations and partners.

Head Coach Charlie Drum has been burning the midnight oil since Sunday as he waited for the curtain to fall and find out who his new friends will be.

“Our degree of difficulty did not change much,” Coach Drum said when assessing new and departing teams in District 14-AAAA. “We traded two playoff teams for two playoff teams so our district did not change much.”

Wimberley and Navarro was lost while Liberty Hill and Taylor were added from their district to the north.

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