Wall Hawks Kick Off Season as Defending Champs Against Canyon West Plains

WALL, TX — The defending state champion Wall Hawks will take on a talented opponent in the opening week of the high school football season.

Wall will face off against the Canyon West Plains Wolves, the No. 10-ranked team in Class 4A Division I. Wall is coming off a state title in 3A D-II, but the Hawks have now moved up to 3A D-I, where they're ranked No. 6.

Both of these teams have basically new starting lineups on the field after they were hit hard by graduation.

The Hawks bring back only three starters on offense and three on defense.

Starting quarterback Gunner King takes over for Landon York, who led the charge after the Hawks switched to the spread offense and did tremendous work. Now, King gets to take over that role on the field. He did get some snaps last season at QB and went 18-of-30 passing for 291 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. With a heavy passing offense and King taking his role seriously, expect the expected growing pains against some tough teams, but Wall will get the ball rolling as the season moves along.

The good thing is the Hawks were pretty deep and return 17 lettermen, which will give King a few weapons on the field. Among those are wide receivers Evan Boehle,Jager Thompson, and running back Gunner Garza. Wall’s top receiver from last year is not returning to the field as Reid Robertson graduated, but there are plenty of playmakers on this roster. 

Boehle is expected to make a huge jump and had a really good season last year with 535 yards on 43 catches with six TDs. Thompson is a Swiss Army Knife and put up 559 yards and eight scores through the air, and he has come out of the backfield in the past. Garza had 291 rushing yards last year on only 14 carries. He leads a committee of backs that includes Kaden McFarden, who ha=d 124 yards and a TD.

On the line, look for guys like Mason Steen, Gage Jacoby, Tate Probandt and Andy Higgins up front.

The Wolves bring back just two starters on both sides of the ball, including running back Slade Russell, who put up over 2,000 yards and 24 TDs last season. 

Gianni Peck is also dangerous when he gets the ball as he averaged 8.7 yards a carry last year and scored five times. Through the air, Kade Schneider caught 23 passes for 341 yards and three TDs.

The Wolves return both of their leading tacklers from last year in Cash Lofton, who had 143 tackles, and Bentley Chandler, who had 131. West Plains will also have someone who will get after Gunner King in the form of Kylan Akins, who had five sacks last year, and Peck, who got home three times.

Defensively, the Hawks bring back Slayton Hallmark, who had 98 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, three sacks and one pass defended. Wall also brings back Braylon Nelson, Blaize Benson, Christian Camp, Rhett Butler and Caden Sturm.

Canyon West Plains has a new head coach in Jeff Lofton, who takes over a team that went 12-2 and advances four rounds deep before losing to the eventual 4A-DII state champion Stephenville.

Winning a state championship is hard work and if the Hawks want to do it again, they’ll have to prove their worth against some really tough teams. For their pre-district schedule, they also play La Joya, a 6A squad, the always talented Jim Ned Indians, an Ozona team ranked No. 16 in Class 2A D-I, and two very talented Midland teams in Midland Greenwood (No. 15 in 4A D-I) and private school power Midland Christian. 

In district, the Hawks will face off against No. 14-ranked Llano, which made it five rounds deep and lost to 3A-DI state champion Yoakum, and No. 17 Ingram Moore.

The Hawks kick off their defending state-title run at 7 p.m. tonight at Clayton Weishuhn Field in Wall.

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