Staff file photo / Neel Madhavan. Canfield’s Ben Weaver finishes a layup during a win over Ursuline on Dec. 6 in Youngstown.

CANFIELD — Nearly one year ago, the Canfield boys basketball team defeated Warrensville Heights 68-46 at the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse to advance to the Division II, Region 25 championship game.

Today, the Cardinals travel back to Canton and face Warrensville Heights once again with a Division IV regional title game berth on the line. Canfield coach Andy Vlajkovich expects the Tigers to come in with a different mindset than last year.

“I think anytime you lose to somebody, there’s always a revenge factor if you come from a prideful program. I’m sure there will be [something extra to play for]. I would expect there to be,” Vlajkovich said.

The Cardinals, like last year’s team, which defeated the Tigers on the back of a dominant final 10 minutes, remain confident in themselves.

Part of that confidence, Vlajkovich says, is because many of the players have been here before.

“You have to be in this game, oftentimes, to win this game,” Vlajkovich said, “because the emotions are just so different. And you cannot prepare — coaches don’t have drills for how to get your team through a district final, the emotions before a district final, after district final, regional semifinal, regional final. You have to play in those games, and you have to learn how to manage that.

“…All these big games aren’t as much about the X’s and O’s as much they are about how kids and coaches handle their emotions and their mental outlook. So I think the greatest preparation we got for this moment was to be in the same situation last year. No. 1, we expected to be here. But No. 2, we kind of knew how to handle the bumps along the road because we’ve driven this path before.”

The path to Thursday’s game has been relatively smooth for the Cardinals, who enter having won 21 of their 25 games this season. Canfield, however, had to endure one of its lowest-scoring games of the year in its Northeast 2 district championship tilt vs. West Branch last week.

The Cardinals scored just 35 points, its second-worst offensive output of the season. Fortunately, they limited the Warriors to 28 points to earn their spot in Canton.

Vlajkovich said his team’s goal is to play an “efficient,” up-tempo brand of basketball, but they are prepared for whatever kind of game — high or low-scoring, fast or slow — is thrown their way.

“At this point, I don’t think myself or our locker room care whether it’s 35 or 75 [points],” Vlajkovich said. “In March, in all honesty, I think you have to win with multiple styles and not be too much of a one-trick pony — only being able to score, only being able to play in the 70s or 80s, or only being real low scoring.”

The varying nature of playoff games adds another layer of unpredictability and chaos to the postseason and further necessitates urgency and focus from each team wanting to advance to the next round

For Canfield, Vlajkovich said short-term goal-setting and not looking too far ahead has greatly benefited the Cardinals during this run.

“We talked a lot about our long-term goals at the beginning of the season, and we knew that we had the capabilities of being in this game,” Vlajkovich said. “But as I’ve told a lot of people, these aren’t seven-game series; these are one-game series. In a seven-game series, the better team always prevails. But in a one-game series, anything can go wrong. Anybody can beat anybody on any given day … I do think our staff has prepared them to see this one game, one day at a time, and I think that our locker room has really bought into that.

“We’re a confident basketball team because we know that if we play right, we can beat anybody. But we’re also a humble enough basketball team to know that if we don’t play right, anybody can beat us.”

Vlajkovich, who sat one seat down a year ago as then-Canfield head coach John Cullen’s lead assistant, is hopeful that one or a few of his players will “step up” tonight just as they have done all season long to get them to this point.

The Cardinals coach emphasized the importance of rebounding, as well as limiting turnovers and thus Warrensville Heights’ fast-break opportunities. The Tigers enter the game with a 19-5 record after having beaten Marlington in overtime of the Northeast 4 district title game on March 1.

The Cardinals and Tigers will tip off at approximately 8 p.m. at the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse. Akron Buchtel and Cleveland Glenville face each other in the other Region 13 semifinal at 6 p.m. The winner of that game will play either Canfield or Warrensville Heights on Saturday at 4 p.m. in Canton.