CANFIELD — The boys basketball game between the Warren Harding Raiders and Canfield Cardinals was supposed to be a showdown of first-place teams in the All-American Conference, but it turned into a lop-sided affair.

The Cardinals could not do anything wrong in the contest as they walloped the Raiders 70-31 to improve to 9-3 on the season and 3-0 in the league. The Raiders fall to 7-5, 2-1 in the conference.

“We can determine our own future now that everyone has at least one loss,” Cardinals coach John Cullen said. “We can also lose to any one of these teams because they all have talent. The bottom line is that we just want to take care of getting better as the season goes on.”

The Cardinals seized control of the game right from the opening tip as they raced out to a 9-2 lead just a couple of minutes into the contest. By the end of the first quarter, they held a 10-point, 22-12 lead.

“They were the only 2-0 team in the league, so it was a strong motivation for us to prepare ourselves for first place and give them their first loss,’ Cardinals junior guard Dom Cruz said.

The Cardinals continued to pull away from the Raiders in the second frame as Cruz started to heat up, both driving to the basket and draining threes from the outside. He would score a game-high 26 points on the night, including 12 points in the second period as the Cardinals held a commanding 31-point, 49-18, lead at the intermission.

“It doesn’t leave much room for comebacks when you are doing that (hitting shots). When you shoot the ball, it makes up for a multitude of sins,” Cullen said. “The bottom line is that we executed, and execution hurts really athletic teams because they are relying on their aggressiveness to get them the advantage.”

In addition to Cruz, the entire Cardinals team had success driving to the basket. And when the Raiders closed the lanes, the Cardinals were deadly from outside, connecting on eight threes in the game.

Meanwhile, the Raiders struggled to get anything working most of the night, missing on all eight shots they took from behind the arc.

“We have gotten a lot better over the season at accessing defenses, and they (Harding) weren’t playing good help defense so we were able to see those gaps. We were doing a good job of playing together,” Cruz remarked. “In practice, we do a lot of shooting drills and put a lot of emphasis on our technique. Everybody played with confidence tonight, that is why we shot the ball so well.”

“They (Canfield) executed to a T,” Harding coach Keelyn Franklin stated. “Whether it was with the back door cuts or open looks they were knocking them down. They were lights out. And that goes to our lack of intensity on our rotation too. They chopped us up.”

The Cardinals continued to pull away in the second half as they tripped the second-half running clock at the 3:46 mark of the third quarter when Cruz buried a three to push their lead to 60-24. They held a commanding 64-24 lead at the end of the third period.

With both teams emptying their bench, the Raiders took small consolation in outscoring the Cardinals 7-6 in the fourth frame to reach the 39-point final margin.

“There weren’t any positives to take out of this game,” Franklin said. “It did reveal some things in reference to our habits. I think we have gotten away from the habits that helped us become successful and win some games, and we have gotten a little complacent. In practice, we have to ratchet it back up, and as the coach, that is my job to make sure that it happens.”

The Raiders will play again Tuesday in their next contest as they host the Boardman Spartans in another All-American Conference battle. The Cardinals also return to action on Tuesday when they take on the Howland Tigers in another league tilt.