Staff file photo / Greg Macafee Canfield’s Danny Inglis stiff arms a defender while carry the ball during the Cardinals’ regional final win over Chardon on Nov. 18.

CANFIELD — The Canfield football team has been waiting for its opportunity.

Now they have it.

When the Cardinals (13-1) take the field today at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton at 3 p.m. against Bloom-Carroll (14-1), they’ll have an opportunity to bring home their first state title in school history.

“This is a big deal for our school, our community and certainly our program,” Canfield head coach Mike Pavlansky said. “But like I’ve told the kids, it’s a football game. Friday at 3 p.m., it’s a football game and the team that can lock in and be focused and do the things better than their opponents is probably going to win the football game.”

The last time the Cardinals made this type of run, they finished with an overall record of 14-1 and fell to Toledo Central Catholic at Massillon’s Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. They utterly dominated teams up to that point in the year. Their smallest margin of victory was three points, which came in their state semifinal victory over Tallmadge, the second undefeated team they beat in a row.

Canfield pitched five shutouts that season and had a special mix of both seniors and underclassmen that allowed them to play at an exceptionally high level. Pavlansky, who was at the helm of that team in 2005, said his current team reminds him a lot of his 2005 squad.

“The senior class, their leadership quality is off the charts,” Pavlansky said. “We also have some seniors that were used to playing both sides of the ball and for the betterment of the team have limited themselves to one side of the football. We know if something happens they can certainly move around. But to be able to be fresh and healthy this time of the year, you need guys to play one side of the ball.”

The Cardinals are looking for a different result this time around and they have quite the task in front of them.

First-year head coach Jeremy McKinney and the Bloom-Carroll Bulldogs are making their first state title game appearance after making a run to the state semifinals the past two seasons in Division IV.

The Bulldogs have been on a tear since losing their first game of the season to Harvest Prep, 20-7. They’ve reeled off 14 straight wins and they’ve posted five shutouts in the process. Outside of allowing Bishop Watterson to score 28 points in their regional final matchup, the Bulldogs have only allowed 26 points in the playoffs.

The name of the game for the Bulldogs is running the ball.

Junior Jaden Ball, who comes in at 6’4, 280 pounds, leads an offensive line that has heights that range from 5’10 to 6’10 and weighs an average of 282.5 pounds.

Junior Dylan Armentrout leads a talented group of runners alongside Andrew Marshall and Chase Plantz that have rushed for 4,231 yards this season for an average of 282.1 yards per game.

Armentrout alone has rushed for almost half that total with 2,115 yards and 18 touchdowns. He tallied 250 yards and three touchdowns on 30 carries in Bloom-Carroll’s state semifinal win over Tippecanoe. Marshall has also rushed for 1,085 yards and 14 scores while Plantz leads the team with 19 rushing touchdowns.

Pavlansky said that in the game against Tippecanoe, he saw the Bulldogs line up in one formation — three running backs and the quarterback — and run the ball 55 out of 61 plays.

“If we can’t chase them out of that formation, we’re not going to be able to win the game,” Pavlansky said. “We have to be able to get them in different formations and even when they get into different formations, they are still really good at them. But if they can line up in one, they are going to line up in that formation.”

With the number of weapons that the Bulldogs have, the Cardinals are necessarily going to be able to load the box up and stop the run game as Bloom-Carroll has shown the ability to throw the ball as well.

Sophomore quarterback Ethan Thanthanavong has thrown for 1,081 yards and nine touchdowns, so the Cardinals know that they have to stay on their toes.

“They are very good, fast and physical,” senior linebacker Dom Marzano said. “If we can stop the run, then we can have a good chance of being in this game. I mean obviously, those guys are good so we just have to make sure that we are matching the physicality, matching the speed and making sure that we are filling the gaps that we need to fill.”

One way to combat Bloom-Carroll’s running game is to keep the ball out of their hands because when it comes down to it, you don’t know when you might get it back. But, the Cardinals have leaned on their running game this season and know that when it comes to their offensive approach, they need to stick to their strengths.

“We have to be able to run the ball on offense, if we can’t we’re probably not going to win the game,” senior quarterback Broc Lowry said. “So that’s going to be a big key for us. We have to be able to run the ball.”

Pavlansky said it will take everything in Canfield’s arsenal to take on this talented Bloom-Carroll team, but it’s nothing they haven’t done before.

They got the monkey off their back when they defeated Chardon — the team that had knocked them out of the postseason the past two years — in the regional finals. They took down a talented Ursuline team that has lit up the scoreboard all season long. Then, to get to this stage, the Cardinals limited a strong and run-heavy Holy Name team.

Now, they face another challenge and they are ready to take this one head-on just like the rest.

“We know that this is a huge game for us but we also have to make sure that we aren’t just focused on winning a state championship,” Marzano said. “We have to be focused on just playing football and just getting after it every play, just like we would normally do against the teams that we’ve beat before.”