Day After Report: Hockinson vs. Prairie
Cameron Loos had done his homework. The blocking scheme and the back circling into the flat told him to be ready to defend a pass.
When the ball came his way, he was ready. The result was an interception for the Hockinson linebacker, who knew just what to do with the ball in his hands.
“Man, I’m taking it to the house. I made a couple of moves, got past a couple of moves and I was lucky enough to score.”
It’s a play he’s made “a ton” of times in video games, but doing it on the field was a thrill.
Loos’ pick-six and a scoop-and-score from Kedrick Johnson highlighted another strong performance from the Hawks defense in a 40-14 win over visiting Prairie. Prairie finished with 221 yards of offense, but 178 of those came in the fourth quarter when Hockinson was getting experience for younger players. Through three quarters, the Falcons had 43 net yards.
“We’ve got a lot of kids playing now who have played for several years for us,” Hockinson coach Rick Steele noted. “When you play a triple-option team like Prairie is, you’ve got to be disciplined. That’s what we practiced all week long was being disciplined and staying in your gaps and taking the people in the triple option that you’re supposed to have. And we just really showed that tonight. The kids did a great job.”
Steele is excited, too, about the play for sophomore quarterback Canon Racanelli. Racanelli completed 8 of his 16 throws on Friday, and was best at getting the ball quickly to receivers who were in spots to make plays. But he also zipped a pass down the seam to Johnson for a 39-yard touchdown.
“This kid Canon Racanelli, he wings that ball all over the place,” Steele said. “I think that’s really going to help us down the road when teams put a lot of people in the box to try to stop our run game.”
Steele said the Hawks are still learning what they do best on offense.
“This first few weeks of the season we’ve got to figure out what we do well. We’ll thin out the playbook as we go then we’ll just keep working on that stuff to keep getting better,” Steele said.
One area the coach was particularly pleased on Friday was discipline. After penalty problems plagued them in the opener, the Hawks had few penalties of any significance against Prairie.
The Falcons, with less varsity experience, could not say the same. They had double-digit penalties and more than 100 yards worth of infractions for a second consecutive week.
None of those flags was more significant than an illegal formation flag that wiped out a Alec Gawley run deep into Hockinson territory with the score 7-0 in the first quarter.
