HEREFORD – A fast first quarter start followed by a strong third quarter catapulted the Canyon Eagles to a lopsided 52-7 win over Hereford during a District 2-4A Division I opener on a beautiful Friday night at Whiteface Stadium.
The Eagles (5-1 overall) picked up where they left off in the non-district winning a fourth straight game but for head coach Matt Lovorn being 1-0 in district play is all he sees.
“It’s always big to get that first district win,” Lovorn said. “We tell our guys all the time, let’s go be 1-0 this week, and now we’re doing it when it counts. We have to continue to up are level of play and have to keep focusing on ourselves. I loved our game-plan against Hereford, and give those guys credit, they played really hard and never quit.”
Hereford’s struggles continued as the Whitefaces fell to 2-4 overall and 0-1 in 2-4A Division I. However, first-year coach Matt Medley is starting to see the development in his team since taking over.
“We have great flashes of brilliance,” Medley said. “I know the scoreboard may not show that, but we ran some flexbone concepts in this game for the first time all season and I thought the guys executed it well for not doing it in a game. What I’m most proud of, is this is a team that doesn’t quit. They play hard on every snap.”
Canyon couldn’t have asked for a better start from the opening kickoff. The Eagles set the tone on the opening drive marching seven plays in 58 yards that resulted in a 5-yard touchdown push by Austin Turner.
After a quick Hereford 3-and-out, the Eagles went right back to work, finding paydirt once again on a 7-yard scoring pass from Brox Hacker, who rolled right and found Will Killgore in the back of the endzone. That gave Canyon a 14-0 lead in the first five minutes.
On the Eagles ensuing possession, it was now Tripp Miller’s time to shine in this stable of backs. Miller took a sweep, hit the corner and turned on the jets hitting the sideline for a 65-yard score that had Canyon completely in control up 21-0.
“Our game-plan was to come out fast behind doing what we do and that’s run the ball,” Lovorn said. “We changed up some offensive packages and the run game got going in a hurry. We wanted to get their defense on their heels and we were able to do that. It’s one thing to say that, but we executed that and that gave us a lot of confidence.”
Hereford didn’t go away and actually took momentum into the second quarter. Down 21-0, coach Medley went to a new flexbone look that had the Canyon defense back pedaling. The Whitefaces cut into the Eagles lead when Zack Galvan broke loose on a dive play up the middle going 45-yards for a touchdown making it 21-7 with 6:49 remaining in the half.
Canyon responded with a 41-yard field goal from Lane Burton for a 24-7 lead, but Hereford started marching again right before half. With the ball at their own 45-yard line and two minutes to go, quarterback Bennett Bell hit receiver Brix Machen down the sideline for what looked to be a 36-yard reception down to the Canyon 19-yard line.
But that play was negated on illegal touching call where Machen went out of bounds and came back into the field of play. Coach Medley did not agree with that call and felt the Canyon defenders had pushed Machen toward the boundary.
“I thought the big pass play and penalty was a big turning point,” Medley said. “Officiating is tough and I didn’t agree with that call. We had the momentum and we had a chance to go in and cut the lead to 10 at that point. Even with that said, the kids didn’t argue and just kept playing, so I was proud of that.”
Medley did argue the call and was hit with an unsportsmanlike penalty on top of the original call putting Hereford deep in its own territory which resulted in a punt.
That kept Canyon up 24-7 at the half, and when the third quarter started, the Eagles started to flex that run game once more. The dagger came on Canyon’s opening third quarter drive. On just the third offensive play, Lovorn’s offense put sank Hereford when Jaylyn Keith took a trap call and scampered 45-yards to paydirt that gave Canyon a commanding 31-7 lead as the Eagles went on to cruise.
“I liked how we came out and put the game away in the second half,” Lovorn said. “What I really like is are depth at running back. We’ve been developing those guys and we wanted to make sure we had several backs that can go and not just run one guy all the time.”
Canyon finished the game with an impressive 420 yards on the ground led by Austin Turner. Turner chewed up the Whiteface defense toting the rock 15 times for 180 yards with a score. Miller, who left in the third quarter with an injury, carried it only three times but did have 77 yards that included the 65-yard first half touchdown and Keith went for 68 yards with a TD.
Defensively, Canyon limited Hereford to 189 yards with Turner showing his defensive skill at the linebacker position making 10 total tackles with an intercepion.
For Hereford, Galvan ran for a team-best 84 yards and a score.
Photo gallery by Carter Pirtle:
