PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: Swansea duo run wild in season finale

With a chance to make the postseason gone, Swansea coach Chad Leaphart challenged his team to go out on a high note before this past Friday’s game against Gilbert.

Chance Walker and Quaevon Cannon made sure that happened. The two seniors earned The State’s co-offensive Players of the Week honors after they racked up nearly 700 total yards and six touchdowns in the 49-40 win over Gilbert.

The duo accounted for 682 of the team’s season-high 712 yards and had their hands in 67 of 73 offensive plays.

Walker, a quarterback, rushed for 367 yards and also completed his only pass for 15 yards. Cannon, the team’s top tailback, carried the ball a career-high 43 times for 300 yards and scored three times for Swansea, which finished the season at 3-7.

“I told them we couldn’t change about not going to the playoffs, but we would control what we did tonight,” Leaphart said. “Those kids deserved to go out winners, and it was one of the silver linings for the season.”

Leaphart said as the game went on he could feel something special was happening and kept feeding Walker and Cannon as Swansea needed to match Gilbert score for score. The Tigers and Indians combined for more than 1,200 yards of offense.

He also praised the Tigers’ offensive line for opening holes for Walker and Cannon. All five Swansea linemen graded over 90 percent.

“Our offensive line played the best game of the season and without them, Chance and Quaevon don’t put up the numbers they did,” Leaphart said. “The line had more knockdown blocks than in any other game this season and really controlled the line of scrimmage.”

This wasn’t the first time this season Walker, who was moved from receiver to quarterback, put up eye-popping numbers. He had 480 total yards and seven touchdowns in a 63-60 loss to Chapin on Sept. 5.

Since then, Walker has been bothered by a lower back injury, which forced him to miss two games and was limited in another. Leaphart said Friday’s game was the first Walker had been close to 100 percent since early in the season.

Walker finished the year with 1,375 yards rushing and was 35-of-71 passing for 475 yards.

“For a guy like Chance, having a lower back strain is difficult,” Leaphart said. “He is a fast guy, and that limits what he does best. Chance is special, and who knows what would have happened to us if he had been healthy the whole year.”

While Walker was the team’s speed guy, the 5-foot-6, 180-pound Cannon was the bruising runner for the Tigers. He finished the season with a team-high 285 carries for 1,525 yards and seven touchdowns.

“He is just a warrior,” Leaphart said of Cannon. “He is a hard-nosed kid and lot of those runs were between the tackles. There were no easy yards for him.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 10:23 PM with the headline "PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: Swansea duo run wild in season finale."