Eagles to take on Grace Community

The Canton Eagles enjoyed another solid campaign in 2017, playing their best football late in the season to finish with a 6-5 record overall in a bi-district round playoff appearance. Outside of a 10-point loss to Wills Point, Canton dominated both offensively and defensively once District 6-4A play.

The Eagles hammered Ferris by 23 points, Roosevelt by 56, Rains by 56 and Dallas Lincoln by 28 to enter the postseason as the district's second seed where they would lose to a talented Aubrey team.

Looking back head coach Robert Ivey reflected, “It was a good year for us. We hated to get knocked out in the first round where we got beat by a really good Aubrey team. It was just an awesome senior class we had here. There was great leadership. They had fun playing together and the locker room was great. Any time you have that type of chemistry you have a chance to win every Friday night. Early in the season we underachieved a couple of games but our kids bounced back.”

Much of the success for the Eagles in 2017 can be pinned on a talented group of upperclassmen and the emergence of then-junior McGwire Martin as one of the most explosive quarterbacks in the area. Martin totaled over 3,000 yards of offense in his first year under center, including 2,215 passing yards and 879 rushing yards.

Ivey cited Martin’s added experience as a prime reason Canton’s always explosive offense could be even better moving forward. “McGwire got better and better and better as the season went on. Going into this year, the experience he has, you can't put that on the practice field, you can't mock it for him. He's lived it, he's got that experience now. We're excited about his level of play, where he is going to start this year and how he's going to continue to get better this year. That's going to be a key for us.”

For his part, Martin credited his teammates with helping him get comfortable last season. “It was tough at the beginning of the season - I was anxious about everything. As the season went on I got more comfortable and built a connection with all my receivers. Our line stepped up big and we went from there.”

Will Brock, one of the leaders on the Canton offensive line, noted the team had adopted a next man up philosophy. “We had some really good offensive lineman that graduated. They were experienced and I had just started - it was my first year to start last year. I had to grow up a lot. We've all been working really hard to step up. We’ve worked on finding the fight within us.”

Coaches have been pleased with the work put in by players throughout the offseason and two-a-days prior to the season opener Aug. 31. Said Ivey, “I've just been fired up by the effort of our kids throughout camp! Todd Hale has really had a great spring and fall camp for us. Brandon Melton has been great. We've got a young sophomore linebacker Kale Shaw, he's not going to play like a sophomore. We're excited about him. We've got some offensive line guys that are coming back for us like Drew Nunn, Will Brock and some of those guys that we're expecting to be leaders for us. They've had a good fall camp. I've got a whole bunch of other kids like Cooper Smith, you're going to see him on both sides of the ball and he's going to be huge for us. Cameron Sullivan has also been good for us.”

"As a team, I loved the guys that we had but we underachieved a little bit last season," said Cameron Sullivan, an All-District Second Team receiver in 2017. "This year we're working hard. We lost two guys (Carter Day and Tanner Moore) but we also have two guys stepping up. It's our job to make sure those guys are ready."

Ivey also credited the work by his staff and new assistants that have hit the ground running during the preparation phase of the season. “Brad Yudizky came to us from Forney High School and he’ll be our offensive coordinator and Matt Trujillo came to us from Menard and he’ll be our defensive coordinator. They've been in an out through the late spring and even the winter. You step out onto the field and you can't tell the difference. They are already indoctrinated. We have an awesome staff!”

The UIL’s biennial redistricting shuffle placed the Eagles in District 7-4A Division II for the next two seasons alongside Wills Point, Bullard, Brownsboro and Rusk. Bullard and Brownsboro will each be making the drop from the large-school 4A classification to the small-school classification and Rusk will enter the district after finishing 9-3 with an Area round playoff appearance last season.

Canton and Brownsboro squared off during non-district play in each of the past two seasons with the Eagles scoring a 56-34 win in 2016 and the Bears bouncing back to claim a 26-21 in last season's opener.

“Overall, it's going to be a tougher district,” said Ivey. “I don't mean that as any disrespect to the district we were in but the coaching part of it is going to be at a higher level. At the end of the day the guys you put on the field have to execute no doubt but coaching does play a role into it. I just think we're in a district where the level of coaching is going to be better.

“We're never going to step out onto the field and tip the field and that's fine. We've got to play our ‘A’ game every week and we're going to have to stay healthy. I think if we do that we have an opportunity to be successful. It will be a challenge, but our coaching staff and our kids are looking forward to it. We're going to work like we are the underdog.”

Cameron Sullivan agreed with Ivey adding, “The district this year is more even than it has been in the past. We don't really have any bad teams. We're all neck and neck. It's anyone's game right now. It's going to be tough but we're ready for it.”

Martin outlined the team's goal for 2018 stating, "Our goal is to prove everybody wrong. They have us projected to finish last and I don't think that's where we're going to be. Everyone has put us down at the bottom because we graduated a few star people but we have plenty of people that are going to step up and do the job well."

The Canton Eagles wrapped up their preseason with a scrimmage in Addison against Trinity Christian Aug. 23, getting in their final reps before traveling making their way to Tyler Aug. 31 for a matchup with the Grace Community Cougars.

The Eagles and Cougars have been familiar foes in recent seasons, meeting most recently during the second week of the 2017 season. Canton would get the better of that matchup by scoring a 42-31 win. The Cougars enter the season with five starters expected to return on both sides of the football from last year’s 5-6 team.

Versatility is expected to be the calling card of the Cougars in 2018 with the return of starting quarterback Braydon Stone, running back Uchenna Uduma and receiver Alvin Skipworth. Stone finished last season with 1825 yards passing and 1181 yards rushing, Uduma added 1107 yards rushing and over 150 receiving yards and Skipworth who totaled nearly 1400 yards rushing and receiving combined.

Kickoff for the game between Canton and Grace Community is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.