For a little more than two quarters, Lubbock-Cooper managed to hang around with Canyon.

Then the Eagles hit the gas.

Canyon scored 28 unanswered points during a decisive second-half stretch and pulled away for a 49-24 victory over the Pirates, improving to 3-1 on the season.

Coming off a dominant 37-7 victory over Caprock, the Eagles turned in another impressive performance on both sides of the ball. Canyon controlled the game for most of the night, even if the scoreboard didn’t completely reflect it until late in the third quarter.

Lubbock-Cooper (0-4) made things interesting midway through the third when Zayden Echols took a short pass from Jayden Ramirez and turned it into a 54-yard touchdown. Suddenly, Canyon’s lead was down to 21-17.

Instead of tightening up, the Eagles responded.

Canyon went right back to its ground game and marched down the field, with Tripp Miller finishing the drive on an 18-yard touchdown run. It was Miller’s second rushing score of the night and pushed the advantage back to 28-17.

Then came the play that changed the feel of the game completely.

Lubbock-Cooper failed to cleanly field the ensuing kickoff, and Canyon recovered the loose ball inside the Pirates’ 30. The Eagles wasted little time taking advantage, with Austin Turner scoring from 8 yards out with 1:08 remaining in the third quarter.

Just like that, a four-point game had become a 35-17 Canyon lead.

The Eagles kept pouring it on from there.

Canyon finished with 285 rushing yards and never punted. Turner led the ground attack with 123 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries, while Miller also found the end zone twice.

And while Canyon’s running game did most of the heavy lifting, quarterback Brox Hacker quietly put together about as efficient a passing performance as possible.

Hacker completed all 10 of his attempts for 194 yards, including a 62-yard touchdown strike to Rudy Sattler in the fourth quarter. Canyon didn’t need to throw often, but when it did, Hacker made the Pirates pay.

That efficiency was on display from the opening possession.

Canyon took the kickoff and immediately went to work with a 13-play, 70-yard drive that chewed more than six minutes off the clock. Turner finished it with a 1-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead.

The Eagles gave Cooper an opportunity later in the first quarter when a Pirates punt struck a Canyon player and Cooper recovered. Echols capitalized with a 16-yard touchdown run, tying the game at 7-7 with 27 seconds remaining in the quarter.

Canyon answered on its next possession with another balanced drive. Miller capped that one with a 2-yard touchdown run to put the Eagles back in front 14-7.

The Pirates managed to keep things close heading into halftime. Canyon was stopped on downs inside the Cooper 30 late in the second quarter, and Aaron Fenelon kicked a 26-yard field goal on the final play of the half to trim the Eagles’ lead to 14-10.

For a while, Cooper continued to make Canyon work for it.

But once the Pirates pulled within four points in the third quarter, the Eagles took over.

Canyon’s running game wore down the defense, Hacker was perfect through the air, and the Eagles capitalized on Cooper’s costly special-teams mistake. The result was a 28-point burst that turned what looked like it might become a tense finish into another convincing Canyon victory.

After back-to-back impressive wins, the Eagles are 3-1 and looking increasingly comfortable with the formula that makes them dangerous: run the football, control the clock, take advantage of opportunities and make every pass count.