Correspondent photo / Eric Fortune The Canfield girls soccer team show off their Division II district championship trophy. The Cardinals face Chagrin Falls on Tuesday in a regional semifinal.

NILES — For the second time in three years, the Canfield Cardinals girls soccer program is a district champion.

Goals from Morgan Carey (27:40) and Hannah Stein (16:40) in the first half were the only two for the game as the Cardinals beat West Branch, 2-0, in the Division II final at Bo Rein Stadium.

“It’s always special to get to a district final and win it,” Canfield coach Phil Simone said. “The whole group in general are a great group of kids to work with. They make it a lot of fun. I hope that we can continue.”

Canfield plays Chagrin Falls in a regional semifinal on Tuesday at a site to be determined, starting at 7 p.m.

“If we get it together and start playing our game, the sky’s the limit for this group,” Simone said. “With tourney time, you need them to come together, have a little luck, and you need to stay healthy. Hopefully, we get all those and make a deep run.”

The Cardinals (16-2) recently battled through a sickness bug. It seemed to rear its head in the second half as they fell out of sync after pressuring throughout the first half with seven shots on goal.

“I can’t put my finger on it, what we were doing,” Simone said. “We just weren’t in rhythm. I know a lot of the girls aren’t feeling well. A lot of them are hacking up lungs and stuff. We’ve got the cough going on. We just weren’t playing our game.

“They were rushed and they weren’t settling down. Hats off to West Branch because they kind of forced that. Toward the last 6 or 7 minutes, we switched a little bit. We got the ball a little bit wider and we were playing a little more as we can play.”

Canfield’s first goal from Carey was mishandled by the keeper. Carey kept up with the pressure and was able to push it into the back of the net.

Eleven minutes later Stein was able to weave her way past defenders to make it 2-0.

“I thought the first goal was one that we could have probably not let in,” West Branch coach Cheryl Ficco said. “The Stein goal was a beautiful finish.”

West Branch (16-2-2) met Canfield earlier in the season when the Warriors sat back a bit, but tonight they came at the Cardinals and forced the issue a bit.

“I thought our team put forth a very strong effort,” Ficco said. “We played them more conservatively the first time around and this time we felt we had grown as a team and we were ready to play them with our style of soccer.

“We didn’t want to cater to what we thought they were going to do, while still respecting the strong players they have like Hannah Stein, who’s able to get around and finish beautiful shots.”

The final score was the same in both matchups, but the Cardinals not getting a third goal never allowed Simone to fully feel comfortable despite the Warriors being held to one shot on goal in the first half.

“As I tell the girls all the time, 2-0 is one of the most dangerous scores, because you get up by two and you get in a comfort zone,” Simone said. “You give up that one and the momentum shifts. You’re always hoping for that third goal. Luckily, we held it together and kept that out of the back of the net.”

That momentum almost did shift when West Branch’s Addy Jones looked to have a goal with roughly 25 minutes left only to see the Warriors called for offsides, negating the goal.

“We wanted to get that one because we thought it would really open the game,” Ficco said. “I thought in the second half we were able to put more pressure on them and their defensive backs.”

Simone is confident the Cardinals can continue their success.

“I feel like we have a shot if we can keep healthy over the next week,” Simone said.