In fact, it’s one of the areas in which he has seen the most improvement during the early stages of the girls basketball season.

The Cardinals’ defensive prowess was on display Thursday night as they limited Boardman to only two field goals during the first half in a 55-35 victory over the Spartans in the schools’ All-American Conference Red Tier opener.

“I think the thing I’m most pleased about is that we’ve really improved defensively since when we first started out in late October,” Reel said. “I think we’ve really started valuing getting stops.

“There’s still some kinks to work out, but I’m probably pleased about that aspect more. They’ve bought into the fact we’re going to win games defensively when we’re not shooting the ball well, and I think that’s been the real key to the start (of the season.)”

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Marissa Ieraci (left) plays defense while Bailey Moore (right) drives down the court during the third quarter.

Canfield (5-1) outscored Boardman 18-5 after the first eight minutes of play and grew its lead to 30-11 going into halftime.

Grace Mangapora, a senior guard for the Cardinals, said taking an early advantage is something her team does well.

“It was very important to get up on them because they’re a team that can come back,” she said.

“But we’re a team that likes to jump out and likes to get ahead because that’s what we’ve done for a lot of our games, and that’s kind of like our strong suit.”

Reel credits his team’s depth for their recent success.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Gabby Demidovich of Canfield looks to pass the ball to one of her teammates during the first half.

“The nice thing is that we have a nice deep team, and there’s a lot of people we can put in. I think they understand that if they’re not competing on the defensive end, somebody else will, and I think that really helps, because everyday there’s a competition at practice.

“We have a strong JV squad and it’s something that we’ve put a lot of focus on. You’ve got to give the credit to them because they really bought into that.”

Marissa Ieraci, a junior guard, said the competition at practice has made Canfield a better team.

“I think it makes our practices a lot more productive, and it really mimics games.

“So, I think it makes everyone better and I really like it. I think it pushes everyone to be the better player and really challenge each other.”

Boardman (1-4) coach Justin Coffin praised his team’s effort on defense, but said he thinks there’s still a lot of work to be done on the offensive end of the floor with a young team.

“We have a lot of young players playing new roles and it’s a process, so we’re learning on the fly. We’re trying to practice perfect and just more and more repetition at practice.

“It’s December 12th and we’ve been practicing for six weeks and at some point if the players on the court aren’t going to run it right, then we’re going to find five more that will. They’ve been given every opportunity to succeed and at some point they’ve just got to make some plays.”

Mangapora had a game-high 22 points for the Cardinals and she was followed by Ieraci who had eight.

Kate Stamp had a team-high nine points for the Spartans. Maria Torres pitched in with seven.

Reel said he thinks starting off conference play on a high note can have a massive payoff for Canfield.

“We know Boardman is always going to play really hard, and we thought it was important with our first league game to kind of set the tone for what type of team we want.

“A friend of mine who coaches a football team, he says that our goal is to go 1-0 every week. Our goal is very simple, go 1-0 every game. It’s just something we can build off of and I told them, there’s a lot of things we’ve still got to improve, which is exciting to me as a coach, because I think it’s going to be a really great squad for us.”