Correspondent photo/Robert Hayes. Canfield junior Tony Russo drives and scores during the first half against Ursuline, he scored a game-high 21 points during the 58-50 win.

CANFIELD — John Cullen could almost pen literature on his time in high school basketball, although he’ll admit that the losses are recalled with more clarity than the wins.

Tuesday evening, the Cardinals defended the hardwood floor that adorns his name and defeated a skilled Ursuline team, 58-50, earning Cullen his 600th career coaching win.

As many beloved teams as he’ll talk about, he hopes that this iteration of the Cardinals will be noteworthy. Knocking off the Fighting Irish represents a huge step forward, especially when Canfield (3-1) trailed by as much as 15 in the second quarter.

“I’m happy for the kids because we got it handed to us Saturday night (at Mentor),” Cullen said. “To come back and play maybe the most talented team in the area, at least certainly one of them if not the most, and play a good game, it just shows that we have a failure response.”

Ursuline (3-1) came out of the gate firing, especially senior guard Vinny Flauto, who nailed four three-pointers during the first quarter to help the Fighting Irish grit out an early edge. They led 27-12 following a make by Terrance Pankey in the second, holding the Cardinals off the scoreboard for nearly three and a half minutes.

Canfield junior Tony Russo started to find his groove after going scoreless in the first. Seven second-quarter points, including a massive three on the right side of the arc, allowed the Cardinals to remain alive.

“My teammates got me open, they knew I wanted the ball, and coach wanted us to get the ball, so we screened down, got me open,” Russo, who scored 21 points, said. “Coach just said to get on (Flauto) and don’t leave his side. Don’t help off, if Terrance wants to win the game, he can win the game, but don’t let him shoot them out of their loss.

“Our coach is definitely big about how you cannot get emotional, it has to be level headed and if they go up eight in the first quarter, we have a whole game to play, so just keep clawing your way back.”

Clawing is exactly what Canfield did.

The Cardinals meticulously chipped away at the visitor’s lead until sophomore Angelo DeLucia drove into the paint and knotted the contest at 41 following an And-1 conversion at the 1:46 mark in the third.

Just a few short moments later, junior Jake Schneider provided the Cardinals with their first lead of the evening — they never trailed again following that score and only allowed Ursuline to tie the game once after Pankey hit a pair at the charity stripe at the 5:51 mark in the fourth.

With the clock winding down in the third, Russo hit a moonshot three to put the cherry on top of a 10-1 run.

“I thought it was short originally, and someone said that’s off in the crowd,” said Russo with a grin. “As soon as it went in, I just looked at him. I was like, I thought it was off too. I was happy it went in and I was happy we got some momentum from that for sure.”

Schneider tallied eight points, but is still searching for his rhythm. Along with the other players from football, this week is his first back at basketball following their championship on the gridiron.

“It’s completely different, I’m running up and down a court now, compared to only a couple routes in football, but it’s good. I like getting back into the swing of things,” said Schneider. “I would love to come back and set the bar even higher for us, because we’re a very young team, but I know that we can be a very good team.

“It feels very good to get this one under our belt because not a lot of people thought we were going to come out here and do that, but I knew that we were capable of doing that.”

A strong defensive effort late by the lengthy Canfield defense kept Ursuline off the board for nearly the final five minutes, minus a layup from Geno Lucente with 32.1 seconds left. A 10-2 run over that stretch of time allowed the Cardinals to earn a signature win early.

“The difference is when we missed a shot or they missed a shot, we got the rebound. If they get second chance points, it’s a totally different game,” said Cullen. “We say that every rebound is a game-winner, we treat every shot as a missed shot, so that’s what good rebounders do.”

Pankey and Flauto each scored 14 points, with junior center Jaden Payne adding 13 for Ursuline. Following the contest, Ursuline coach Keith Gunther saw the 50/50 opportunities make the difference in the win or loss.

“We had our hands on so many offensive rebounds that we could come up with, and boom, they would tip it and then they get a layup out of it,” Gunther said. “Then things got tight down the stretch and we kinda panicked a little bit. I thought (Canfield) was poised and we panicked instead of playing gritty defense, playing smart, we took a lot of forced jump shots instead of letting our sets work for themselves.

“When you lose, you evaluate why you lost, and you figure out what you have to fix to get a win. Winning is okay, but losing helps you fix things. That’s what we have to do, we have to bounce back.”