The Canyon Lake Hawks are used to playoff berths. Playoff victories have been harder to come by.
The Uvalde Coyotes are enjoying a return to the playoffs, and striving for an historic playoff victory.
Canyon Lake and Uvalde meet Friday in the first round of the playoffs.
After missing the playoffs in 2012, Charley Drum has led the Hawks to the postseason ten years in a row. Canyon Lake has only one playoff victory since 2017, a 48-27 win over La Vernia in 2020.
Their 2022 season started with adversity, a loss to Wimberley and a cancellation against Fredericksburg. Canyon Lake (6-3, 5-0 in 13-4A-DI) trailed 44-13 against Boerne Champion after three quarters, then surged in the fourth, outscoring the Chargers 23-0 before losing 44-36.
What may have appeared at the time like a meaningless scoring spree proved to be a turning point. The Hawks followed the Boerne Champion game with a competitive loss against a 5A DII playoff bound San Antonio Veterans 31-28. Since that 0-3 start, they’ve won six straight, including 20-10 win at 6A East Central and an undefeated run through 13-4A-DI.
The closing run against Boerne Champion turned out to be foreshadowing as well as a turning point. Canyon Lake overcame a 23-7 deficit in their district clinching 34-30 win over Lampasas.
Uvalde (5-5, 2-3 in 14-4A-DI), having earned their second playoff berth in five years, is seeking its first playoff win since 2001 (21-20 vs Kerrville Tivy)
Uvalde led Somerset 14-7 with 5 minutes left in the first quarter before Somerset reeled off 41 straight points, the last 7 coming when Jayden Faz returned the second half kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown.
“We had a bad second quarter,” said Uvalde coach Wade Miller, matter-of-factly. “I’ll take the blame for that. I felt like we needed to try to score to keep up with them, and I think if we’d just kept running the football and doing what we were doing, it would have been 14 points (for Somerset to close the half) instead of 28.”
Despite the lopsided 48-22 score, Somerset only outgained Uvalde 338-325. Three Uvalde turnovers hurt the Coyotes’ chances. Jonathan Jimenez led Uvalde with 100 rushing yards and a touchdown on five carries.
Each team features a balanced running attack. Canyon Lake has four players with between 239 and 543 yards rushing (Helijah Johnson, Justin Abbott, James Garza, Chase Anderson). Uvalde has four players with between 272 and 379 yards rushing (Jimenez, Abraham Ale, Chris Rodriguez, Jayden Gonzales)
Coaching at Tuloso-Midway, Miller saw plenty of teams run similar offenses to Canyon Lake’s slot-T, such as Calallen, Alice and Gregory-Portland. “They (Canyon Lake) are real good at that system. If you don’t read the linemen, and you follow the fakes to the backs, they’re gonna break big plays.”
“We’ve got to tackle, and we’ve got to make them earn first downs.”
“NO BIG PLAYS” is on the top of Uvalde’s defensive board this week.
The winner of Friday’s game takes on the Alice v Calhoun winner in the area round.
Mark Kusenberger
November 8, 2022
Read more from Mark on his blog at https://mkusenberger.wixsite.com/website/blog