Staff photo / Greg Macafee The Canfield offensive line locks into its blocks as quarterback Broc Lowry looks for an opening in the regional quarterfinals against Aurora.

CANFIELD — High school football games are often won in the trenches, where the defensive and offensive lines battle all night long to win the line of scrimmage.

Over the course of the 2022 season, the Canfield football team has leaned on its offensive line to win that battle and open up holes for a stable of talented runners, including Indiana-bound quarterback Broc Lowry.

Canfield’s run-first mentality has paid off to the tune of 219 rushing yards per game, an 11-1 record, and another shot to win a regional title tonight in Ravenna when they take on the Chardon Hilltoppers for the third-straight postseason.

Even with their success though, this offensive line has come a long way since a season ago.

“Last year we had one returning starter in Nick Bowen,” Canfield head coach Mike Pavlansky said. “He’s gone now but the other guys are all back and in that two-year process they have all improved, from the first game last year to now…These guys have been together for two years now and they’ve improved tremendously. The best thing about it is the chemistry has improved tremendously, they trust each other, they talk to each other and they know what’s going on out there on the field.

“In football, at any level, if your offensive line or defensive line is not good, you’re not going to be a very good football team. We’ve been fortunate the last two years, that our guys up front have really improved and played at a high level to allow us to move the football.”

This past week’s regional semifinal matchup against Ursuline was a prime example of what Canfield’s offensive line is capable of.

Lowry turned in one of his best games of the season with 217 rushing yards and three touchdowns. But, in a game where the rain was a big factor, the Cardinals scored all five of their touchdowns on the ground behind a dominant offensive line.

The Indiana-bound signal-caller scored on runs of 13, 43, and 3 yards. Scottie Eaton got the Cardinals on the board first with a 56-yard touchdown run in the first quarter and Danny Inglis finished it off with a 52-yard scamper in the fourth quarter.

“You can tell from Week 1 to now, all of those guys have gotten better and even more experienced from what they were at the beginning of the year, so that’s helped a lot,” Lowry said.

Through 12 games this season, Lowry has rushed for 1,261 yards and 19 touchdowns while Inglis has added 568 yards and 10 touchdowns on 88 carries. Eaton, who works out of the slot at times, has tallied 250 yards and five touchdowns on 36 carries while averaging 6.9 yards per carry.

Sixteen players have tallied at least one carry so far this season for the Cardinals and seven of them have found the endzone with five tallying at least 100 yards.

“We have special guys in the backfield, that’s for sure. They are all great,” senior lineman AJ Murphy said. “I definitely think part of it is, our offensive line has been together a lot of the last two years. So I think that has played a part in it too. I know what the guy next to me is going to do, so I definitely think that plays a big part.”

This current offensive line group, which includes guys like Murphy, Santino Cocca, Jimmy Scharrer, Dom DeDonato, Evan Parker, and Vince Luce started to come together last year in the preseason as they all battled for starting positions. But as time went on they grew accustomed to each other, which is why Murphy believes they have so much success now.

“Starting at the beginning of the year last year, we were kind of unfamiliar with each other and now at this point in the year, I know what the guy next to me is going to do,” Murphy said. “I don’t even have to see it because I know what he’s going to do and I know I can trust him. If we’re working on a double team, I know I can trust him to do his half and he knows that I’ll do my half, which is a really special thing. It’s not an everyday thing.”

The lone senior of last year’s offensive line, Nick Bowen, played a big role in their development as well as he brought his fellow linemen along and taught them how to play Canfield football.

“He was tremendous,” Pavlansky said. “He’s one of the better offensive line leaders we’ve ever had here. He took a group of guys that had never started a varsity game before and we won 11 games last year and got into the regional semifinals. His leadership can never be understated here and our seniors this year have fed off of that and learned from that. Even though we don’t have younger guys playing, per se, those guys have grown in practice because of the seniors.”

All season long, the Cardinals have been dominant in the trenches, but their biggest test will come tonight when they take on the Hilltoppers in their second regional final in three years. Over the past three years, the Hilltoppers have been one of Canfield’s most physical matchups so securing the line of scrimmage, like they have all season long, and playing with an aggressive mentality is at the top of the list of things the Cardinals want to accomplish tonight.