Canfield blanks fourth straight opponent in win over Ursuline
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CANFIELD -- Despite a weeklong layoff, Canfield looked sharp in its return to the turf Tuesday.
Hosting Ursuline, the Cardinals took a lead within the opening 10 minutes and continued to add to their advantage en route to a 5-0 win over the Irish.
"We started just a touch slow," Canfield head coach Phil Simone said. "We haven't played -- our Poland game last Thursday got lightning'd out, and we did not practice at all in between. So a little rusty coming out of the gate, but when we decided to play quickly, speed things up, minimized touches, I thought we were lights out."
After two near-misses early on, including a Nick Atsas shot off the crossbar, the Cardinals jumped out ahead seven-and-half minutes into the match when Atsas got the ball to his left foot and sent it on the ground past Ursuline goalkeeper Carson Martinucci and into the bottom-right part of the net.
Less than seven minutes later, Canfield went up 2-0 on a Chase Cuffle goal. Cuffle slid in and beat a defender to the ball after Collin Casey dribbled it up the field and passed it to him from the right side of the field.
Cuffle repaid the favor ahead of the 10-minute mark by setting up Casey with the ball in the box. Casey then made a move to his right and scored the Cardinals' third goal of the match.
Casey scored the fourth and final goal of the half 70 seconds later to give Canfield the 4-0 lead going into the break.
Less than three-and-half minutes after resuming play, in spite of a more aggressive and effective Irish side, Casey earned another assist, again to Cuffle, who scored his second goal to push the Cardinals' lead to 5-0.
"We had a much better second half. That's all I can say about that," Ursuline head coach Joel Monaco said. "We had a nice, nice second half. We were more into it, and we played better as a team for sure. First half was rough, though.
"I think we were just communicating better. We got some pieces back tonight, and just getting the gel back to where we needed to be as a team. I think it took a second to do that, and the second half proved that we were getting back into what we were before everybody came in that was away or hurt or whatever. So yeah, it's coming together. You could see the second half was much better."
Tuesday's win marked the fourth consecutive victory and fourth straight clean sheet for Canfield, which has won 5-0 three times and outscored its opponents 17-0 so far this season.
"We have a solid group," Simone said. "We were stout last year defensively. We lost some attacking pieces but didn't lose a lot of defending players, even though we moved some people around. That's one of the things that we talk about when we go in at half. If it's still a zero on the scoreboard for the other team, that's one of the pieces that's important to us in the second half. So we try to keep that."
With the loss, Ursuline dropped to 3-3 on the year. The Irish had won their last two games and similarly had a week off between matches before Tuesday's contest. They will return to action Thursday for an away match vs. West Branch.
"They're a great team, one of the top teams in the state always," Monaco said of Canfield. "They're just well-coached. They execute well. And you just have to play your best game against them. Honestly, you have to be perfect when you play them. And tonight, we just fell short of that execution, and we'll learn from it and get better and move forward."
Canfield will begin All-American Conference play vs. Louisville at home Thursday.
"I'm not quite sure what to expect from them completely because they've only played two games this year. So there's not a lot out on them," Simone said. "I know they're athletic; they have a couple of players that have some skill. So I think it's gonna be a tough challenge for us going into that kind of semi-blind, I guess you could say. But I think the boys are ready to go for it. So hopefully, it's a good outcome for us."