Hawkins won a grand total of five games in the 2018 and 2019 seasons, so the Hawks’ 5-0 start to 2020 may come as a surprise to many.
Just not to anyone in the Hawkins locker room.
Coach Scott Evans said the groundwork for his team’s early 2020 success came a year ago, when Hawkins reached a much-needed bye week having lost its first five games.
“I’ll be honest, that was the turning point,” Evans said. “We came of out of that and beat two teams we hadn’t beaten in years, and then we beat Big Sandy, our rivals from five miles away. That made these kids believe. We got to the playoffs and played a really good Normangee team – and they are good again this year – and we had the lead for quite a while.”
Those kids were primarily freshman and sophomores in 2019, including leading rusher Kayden Upchurch, a wizened veteran as a junior after rushing for nearly 1,500 yards over his first two seasons.
“We were really, really young for the last two years,” Evans said.
So young that Evans was forced to play Upchurch as a freshman “even though we knew he wasn’t ready.”
Upchurch isn’t the only Hawk who earned a varsity letter as a freshman. Senior quarterback Zach Conde played as a ninth-grader. So did fullback/linebacker Braden Adams and junior lineman John Hester, who’s since grown in to a 6-5, 265-pound monster with offers from UTSA and New Mexico. This year’s roster is older, and the results are beginning to show.
Sign In