Hawks explode for 50 points in shutout over Calhoun
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CARROLLTON - It was a type of game the Carrollton Hawks had been waiting for through the first couple of weeks in the season.
You could throw in Hunter Flowers and Nathan Walker too.
Flowers threw three touchdown passes, two of them to Walker while the all-state wide receiver added a rushing touchdown as well to propel the Hawks to a dominating 50-0 victory over the Calhoun Warriors in Carrollton on Friday night in week three of the season.
The Hawks claim their first victory and improve to 1-2.
“We fixed some things tonight that we did well at the end of last season. I obviously like the outcome tonight,” Carrollton head coach Nick Flowers said.
Hunter Flowers completed 24-of-30 passes with 352 passing yards. Both are career highs for the junior quarterback. Although he denies he cares about his stats, Flowers is proud of the fact that at one point he completed 13 consecutive passes.
“Our goal this week was to have 300-plus offensive yards and no sacks and no turnovers. We got all of those except for the sacks, but the completions I’m working on that with one of my coaches,” Hunter Flowers said. “The defense stepped up, and that’s when the offense came in. We run everything behind our defense because without our defense we can’t do anything. I’m glad we had some kids step up tonight and improved us. I’m very happy with what I saw tonight.”
Calhoun, who gained 149 yards of offense remains winless at 0-3.
“It’s hard to overcome the injuries we’ve had, and we’re a young team with a lot of potential, but we’ll get better that’s for sure,” Calhoun head coach Aaron Elmore said. “We’re [taking] baby steps. [The Pleasant Hill game] is a huge game for us obviously if we want to try and save a chance to make it to the playoffs. It’s one those things where we have to keep grinding and have to figure out a way to be successful.”
A.J. Hillen, who played in a wildcat role at quarterback, rushed for 82 yards with 16 carries. Running back, Trey Hart carried the ball 11 times for 66 yards.
Walker, who came into the game with two touchdowns and a limited amount of catches and yards, found the end zone three times with 135 total yards. The past two weeks, teams had doubled teamed him on every play, but the coaching staff found some ways to get him loose by putting him in the slot position.
“I can tell you it was pretty aggravating not being open. I didn’t like it. I like getting the ball that’s for sure,” Walker said.
He would get open alright.
After forcing a three-and-out against Calhoun, the Hawks ran a jet-sweep for Walker who collected the handoff, read his blocks well and took off upfield for a 39-yard touchdown run to give Carrollton an 8-0 lead. On the Hawks next series, Flowers threw a screen pass to Walker, which he scored on from 38 yards out to put his team up 14-0.
“[We saw] great explosiveness out of Walker tonight. He caught some balls and made some moves and did a great job,” Nick Flowers said. “We moved him around a little bit, and we’ll continue to. I felt like we had to get the ball in our playmaker’s hands. In our scheme, we gotta be able to get the ball at some point in our playmaker’s hands.”
The Warriors forced two consecutive stops on defense, but the Hawks wouldn’t let them get much going offensively. A big help before this week was Carrollton’s physicality being heavily tested against Triopia and Beardstown who are both now 3-0.
“Last year [Calhoun] put up a good fight,” Walker said. “This year they put up a good fight on offense. I know it doesn’t show up on the scoreboard, but they were running the ball hard. We just had some good plays to stop them.”
With two minutes to play in the first half, Carrollton marched downfield in 70 yards. That drive was capped by a Hunter Flowers 14-yard rushing touchdown where he dived for the end zone only to be upended in mid-air causing him to flip across the pylon and thankfully landing on his feet. That gave the Hawks a 20-0 lead.
Flowers added another rushing touchdown scoring from 11-yards out and then connected with Walker again, who juked and cut across his way into the end zone.
In the fourth quarter, Byron Holmes caught a halfback screen pass and took it to the house from 24-yards out. With 28 seconds to play Holmes intercepted a pass and returned it to the end zone.
“We felt like it was important here in the second half to not change anything, but yet just play a little more physical up front and play four quarters tonight,” Nick Flowers said. “We played two quarters last week, but we didn’t come out at halftime and play the third and fourth quarters. Our goal tonight was to play four quarters of football. If we’re going to stay kings of the south, then we gotta play four quarters and can’t have any letdowns.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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Dan Brannan also contributed to this story
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