High School Sports

Canfield shut out by Howland

Canfield shut out by Howland

CANFIELD -- After 80 minutes in their first meeting two weeks ago, Canfield and Howland were tied. And after another 40 minutes Wednesday, the teams remained even.

But the Tigers, whose major possession advantage yielded no goals in the first half, saw their hard work pay off in the second and found the back of the net five times in the final 40 minutes to leave Cardinal Stadium with 5-0 win.

"Set pieces got us," Canfield head coach Phil Simone said. "We weren't connecting well. The girls did not quite come through on the game plan that we talked about. Just was not clicking. But the set piece difference and giving up, I think, three or four goals, on set pieces hurt us tonight."

For the first 20 minutes of Wednesday's match, both teams struggled to put shots on goal. However, Howland decisively won the possession battle, routinely taking the ball away from the Cardinals before they could even reach the Tigers' end of the field.

"It’s a lot about what we’ve talked about with them," Simone said. "We’re looking for that through ball of 20, 30 yards instead of playing the feet a little bit more. So we’re just kind of playing it and playing it and playing it and not connecting with it any more. We're close to the end of the season, but a lot of it is still our youth. We are very young. But just connecting in that final third and playing the feet instead of through balls is a big point."

Canfield managed to get and keep possession of the ball as the first half wore on, although it did not result in many shots or any goals, as the teams went to halftime in a scoreless tie.

Howland emerged from the break energized, and within 90 seconds, earned a corner kick and put a shot on goal with a soft header that was easily saved by goalkeeper Elliot Klimas. One minute later, the Tigers were back in a nearly identical situation, although the results were vastly different.

With Gianna Ognibene taking the corner, the ball again found its way to a Howland player, but this time, Madison Schmitz dipped her head and solidly connected with the ball and sent it to the far corner of the net for the first goal of the match.

Ognibene then scored a goal of her own in the 56th minute, when her free kick from more than 20 yards out found the right side of the net.

With 19 minutes remaining, the Tigers went ahead 3-0 after Klimas could not corral the ball after a save, allowing Teagan Bell to swoop in and score.

Howland added two more goals in the final four minutes.

First, Ognibene deflected a free kick just over Klimas, who went to stop the ball before Ognibene could get a foot on it. Then, Ognibene again connected with Schmitz on a corner kick, with Schmitz directing the ball into the net with a shoulder to make it 5-0 with 1:24 remaining.

"Sometimes, unfortunately, that happens when you’re down two goals and you try and switch some things and push numbers up a little bit," Simone said. "If it doesn’t work out, you get another one or two or three scored against you. So that’s an unfortunate part of being down and trying to chase the game and trying to throw numbers up."

Howland improved to 9-5-1 on the year and 6-2-1 in All-American Conference play with Wednesday's win. The Tigers next play on Monday vs. Austintown Fitch, which Canfield (8-4-2, 5-2-1 in AAC), especially with its loss to Howland, needed to beat Louisville on Wednesday.

However, the Falcons fell to the Leopards 4-3, clinching the AAC title for Louisville, which has yet to lose a conference match.

The Cardinals will have a chance to change that Saturday, when they travel to Louisville for their penultimate league tilt.

"We’ve got to focus more on playing simple, on connecting, being a little bit more receptive of what we’re trying to tell them to do," Simone said. "That was the one big thing in the second half -- that everything we tried to implement at halftime, we did not accomplish. Not only did we not accomplish it, but we didn’t try and execute it. So we’ve just got to work on execution and just getting them back grounded and playing simple again. We’ve got the capability of doing that. We just have to -- that youth -- mentally, we’ve got to get them back."