Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. Canfield’s Ben Weaver, right, finishes at the rim around Ursuline’s Noah Bell (11) during the Cardinals’ victory on Friday night at Ursuline High School in Youngstown.

YOUNGSTOWN — This past March, Ursuline trounced Canfield in the Division II regional final to earn a trip to the state final four.

Since then, the Cardinals have waited eight months for another shot at the Irish. On Friday night, Canfield gots its chance — the Cardinals made sure they didn’t waste it.

Canfield stormed out to a big lead, then held on in the second half to beat Ursuline 56-54 to exact its revenge for the defeat that ended the Cardinals’ season last year.

“Eight months of it on our brains, eight months,” Canfield head coach Andy Vlajkovich said. “I’ve had these guys since May, since I got the job, and we’ve talked a lot about our preparation for all of our opponents. But I think, without a doubt, Ursuline was in the back of our minds because they just flat out bullied us last year in the regional game. That was a motivator in the weight room, that was a motivator in summer workouts, it was a motivator all through the fall. I’m just really proud of that locker room.”

Similar to how Ursuline jumped on the Cardinals early in last season’s matchup, Canfield returned the favor by racing out to a 26-8 lead through the first few minutes of the second quarter.

Bryce Roberts got Canfield going with a couple of early 3-pointers, but it was the Cardinals’ defense that had Ursuline flummoxed in the first half.

Vlajkovich credited Jake DeLisio’s defense throughout the game, particularly on Ursuline guard Jaylen Gunther. Gunther may have scored 15 points for the Irish, but DeLisio, among others for Canfield, helped limit him to 4-of-16 shooting.

In the first half, the Irish scored just 12 points and shot 20% from the floor.

“You would have thought that our kids would have known they were going to come out and play like that,” Ursuline head coach Keith Gunther said. “Total opposite of the game plan. We said we were taking away the 3-point line, so what do we do? First three possessions, we give up three threes. We know what they do, and they do it well. Then on the flip side, we played stupid. We start jacking threes, playing a slow-paced game. That’s not our style, and they got ahead of us. We weren’t making shots.”

Despite the 26-12 lead at halftime, Vlajkovich and the Cardinals knew they were going to take a punch from Ursuline at some point, and it came in the third quarter.

A huge third quarter from the Irish almost flipped the game on its head. Led by nine of Noah Bell’s team-high 18 points, Ursuline outscored Canfield 25-14 during the period to cut the Cardinals’ lead to three by the end of the third quarter.

“Our goal was to cut it to seven by the end of the third, and we cut it to three,” Gunther said. “(We got the) game going at our pace. They want to pull it, they want to make you play one-minute possessions. So our second half focus was to get the game going up-and-down, even if they get a couple easy buckets or a wide open three. We just wanted that pace of the game to be fast-paced.”

But Canfield took Ursuline’s best punch and delivered it right back, opening the fourth quarter on a 10-0 run to push its lead back to double digits.

“The thing I’m most proud of, we knew we were going to take a punch. The way we weathered it and handled it shows a lot about the character of the kids in that locker room,” Vlajkovich said. “We just didn’t turn it over. We made the right plays, and we used their aggressiveness against them.”

In the final minutes, Ursuline tightened things up, getting as close as two points at one point. But Ben Weaver made some key layups down the stretch for the Cardinals to help them put the game away.

Roberts led Canfield with 18 points, but Weaver finished with 17, including scoring eight points in the fourth quarter.

“I thought both were phenomenal, and I think both were phenomenal on the defensive end, as well,” Vlajkovich said. “Bryce had a heck of an assignment tonight with Noah Bell, so I was really proud of their offensive game. Those are two guys that — they’re both really talented, and I’ve kind of challenged them on their consistency. So I’m just really proud of what they did at both ends of the floor.”

Canfield, now 3-0, will return home to host rival Poland on Tuesday, while Ursuline will travel to face St. Thomas Aquinas on Tuesday. Both games tip at 7 p.m.