He helped his team set an early tone Wednesday with a victory over Boardman’s Raymond Cmil in the Cardinals’ 52-20 victory over the Spartans at Canfield High School.

“I thought it was fun.” Barber said. “I thought it was a good experience wrestling Ray. He’s good, I knew it was going to be a battle.”

Cmil came into the match with a record of 16-2, and is ranked ninth in the state at the Division I level.

The wrestling match between the schools featured a packed crowd and was televised on WKBN’s Game of The Week, something that Barber felt added to the atmosphere.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Canfield’s Nick Barber, right, wrestles Boardman’s Raymond Cmil during the first match of Wednesday night’s match against the Spartans at Canfield High School.

“I think wrestling on TV is good for our community and their community and the sport in general,” Cmil said. “I really love it, it’s fun knowing we have that atmosphere.”

Barber is now 10-4 on the season, but Cardinals coach Stephen Pitts feels that early season adversity helped grow Barber.

“We set up our schedule to go to the tough stuff.” he said “We want our kids to have losses, we haven’t had a state champ in the last five or six years that hasn’t had a loss on his record going into that state final.

“We want our kids to be challenged and that’s OK.”

Even with success in the past, Barber wants to stay focused.

“You always have to stay hungry in this sport or else people are going to come attack you, and they’re going to come and take what you want,” Barber said.

“My focus this year has been to score as many points as possible, keep on the attack like it’s always been, because if I continue to do this, I feel that I will win a state championship.”

The junior helped give his team an early 9-0 lead, and he feels that taking an early advantage is something that pushed his teammates.

“It’s a good transition for the team because it starts us off. It gets everyone fired up,” he said. “So, I feel that a win early is big and it gets our guys pumped up for the rest of the match, just added fuel to the fire and all that.

“It’s great. I love being first. I don’t like wrestling last, but I love being first.”

Canfield (6-1) honored nine seniors before the match, but were without Anthony D’Alesio and Nick Crawford, who have both been sidelined with injuries. D’Alesio is expected to return next week, but no timetable has been set for Crawford yet.

Pitts felt winning on Senior Night was huge, especially since every senior in the lineup won their match.

“You want those guys to have a good Senior Night.” he said. “You don’t always get that, so to have all of them win was good for our kids. They’re all excited in the locker room about it, so it’s exciting.”

On the flip side of the coin, Boardman (5-5) only had one senior in the lineup. Spartans coach Dom Mancini felt that Canfield’s large senior class gave them an advantage over his young squad.

“I think that’s a lot of times what it gets down too, is men versus young men and they’re good,” Mancini said. “We knew that was going to happen in a lot of cases, so we just have to get back to work in the wrestling room and just keep putting in time during the offseason.”

Mancini feels his underclassmen can learn after taking on upperclassmen.

“Well, I think the first thing that they learn is the physical maturity of weight lifting and how strong they are,” he said. “No matter what you know, it’s not going to work unless you have some strength to counter it with.

“I think that’s the first thing that they’re going to observe going against some of the kids they went against tonight.”