Correspondent photo / Michael G. Taylor Canfield’s Joey Pannunzio (13) takes a catch-and-run to the Cardinal Mooney 7-yard line during a game Friday in Canfield.

CANFIELD — Canfield held off a late Cardinal Mooney surge on Friday night to remain unbeaten and improve to 3-0 heading into next week’s matchup with archrival Poland.

Save for two long touchdown runs, Canfield’s defense largely stifled what has been an efficient Mooney offense thus far this season in a 24-14 victory at Bob Dove Field.

“We kept preaching to them, the (running) back is super talented,” Canfield head coach Joe Ignazio said. “You saw that when he popped those two runs, and we told our kids, just keep playing physical and keep peppering them. Get them down on the ground, and they certainly did that all game long, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

Canfield’s start to this season has been a major turnaround after the team went 4-5 last year and missed the playoffs.

“Our kids have done a great job of flushing last year,” Ignazio said. “It’s history and we haven’t looked back. I told them when we came out of the Salem scrimmage, you could tell we were a different football team. We’re playing for each other and the kids in this program, and it shows week-in and week-out and that’s a testament to our kids.”

The Cardinals withstood a career night from Mooney running back Ike Lake, who put his team on his back and ran for 231 yards and two touchdowns.

“That’s normal for him,” Mooney head coach Frank Colaprete said. “He has the ability to see holes and cut, run hard and accelerate through his cuts. Then he has the vision to find those open windows and finish the runs.”

Meanwhile, Landon Shina did a little bit of everything for Canfield. Shina had a sack, a receiving touchdown and blocked a punt which set up another Canfield touchdown.

“He’s just a warrior,” Ignazio said. “He’s a kid that’s played for a couple of years for us. He does everything we ask of him. He doesn’t come off the field, and he’s a chip off the old block, I’ll say that.”

Canfield opened the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run by Enzo Cocca with about four minutes left in the first quarter. Cocca’s score was set up by Joey Pannunzio’s rumbling 55-yard run straight up the middle of the Mooney defense.

In the final ticks of the first quarter, Lake’s 47-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-short tied things up for Mooney.

However, the second quarter belonged to Canfield.

Even though a holding penalty negated what would have been a 12-yard touchdown run by Donnie Ferko, Canfield scored a few plays later on a 5-yard touchdown pass from Cocca to Shina.

On fourth down, Canfield originally lined up for a field goal attempt. But after a timeout, the Cardinals elected to go for it and were rewarded with the touchdown.

On the ensuing drive, Mooney quarterback Vince Gentile fumbled the ball while trying to escape pressure in the pocket and Canfield recovered, giving it a short field to work with just before the intermission.

Canfield couldn’t get the ball in the end zone, but still managed to extend its lead with a 35-yard field goal by Luke Goodrich to go into halftime with a two-score lead up 17-7.

“We played really sloppy tonight,” Colaprete said. “You can’t play sloppy against a good team, a well-coached team. That’s what happens when you play a good, well-coached team and you play sloppy.”

With Mooney forced to punt on its first drive of the second half, Shina stepped up once again. He blocked the punt near midfield, which set up Canfield’s next touchdown.

After a holding penalty backed the Cardinals up, Cocca found Pannunzio on a screen pass on third-and-long, which he took 47 yards to the house to extend Canfield’s lead midway through the third quarter.

“It was extremely important to put them on their heels a little bit,” Ingazio said. “Then we were able to hold them.”

Despite Canfield’s three-score advantage, Mooney wouldn’t go away.

Just three plays later, Lake picked up his second long touchdown run of the night, sprinting 74 yards to paydirt, breaking a couple tackles along the way. That cut Canfield’s lead to 24-14.

“I thought we should have capitalized in more situations in the second half,” Ignazio said. “But we let penalties get the better of us. But we were able to withstand the threat, and our kids had tremendous resiliency about them tonight.”

But despite a late interception on a trick play that gave Mooney the ball back, Canfield’s defense kept Mooney off the scoreboard in the fourth quarter to help put away the victory.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Colaprete said. “We gotta keep improving to get to where we want to be at the end of the season.”