CANFIELD — A year ago in a Division II Boys Soccer Sectional bracket final, Poland’s Noah Huda knocked in a goal following a Poland corner kick with 1:32 left to give the Bulldogs a one-goal win over the Canfield Cardinals.

“We weren’t even thinking about that coming into this game,” Canfield coach Christian Silvestri said. “The past is the past. We’re a whole different team. Our record is night and day to last year. To say that we were waiting for one guy to take a shot, we weren’t.”

A little less than a year later, the rivalry is as intense as ever. Though, the game between these two schools once again almost came down to one shot from one guy.

This time it was Canfield’s Don Palma’s near goal with 4:03 left that nearly gave Canfield the victory in what turned out to be a hard thought 0-0 tie Tuesday night at Bob Dove Field.

“That was a counter attack at the end of the game,” Silvestri said. “That’s what you want to see. Unfortunately, they were playing good defense. It was a defensive game. He was there, and they just made a good play.”

Canfield (7-1-2) came into Tuesday’s matchup ranked 12th in the OSSCA Division II State Poll.

Poland (7-0-1) also received votes and currently sits at 17th. So the defensive struggle wasn’t unexpected, but Poland’s team speed and seemingly winning the 50/50 balls caused the Cardinals a lot of problems.

Still, the Cardinals had six shots on goal and probably had the best shot on goal all night, but it just couldn’t overcome the Bulldogs’ aggressive defense. Poland had nine shots on goal but was denied time and time again by goalkeeper Joe Backhaus.

“We definitely had opportunities,” Silvestri said. “They had opportunities. It was a great game. We’re not happy that we didn’t win, but there are definitely some things we can work on going forward.”

For the Bulldogs, they seemed poised with their overall team speed to dictate the flow of the game as they got players going early and often to offset any type of home-field advantage for the Cardinals. Poland likes to get their attacking players involved as much as possible, coach Brian Garcar said.

“We try to exploit areas on the wide side, on the sidelines,” Garcar said. “As much as we can, we try to let those athletes get involved in the game. We actually played better when the game opened up, and it started to do that in the second half.

“I thought we created some better chances. We just weren’t able to connect at the very end to put that final ball in and finish. Give them a lot of credit. They did some really great things to frustrate us at different points. Our guys battled. They battled. It was just good soccer all the way around.”

Both teams had the fair share of shots at goal, but Poland’s center back tandem of Ryan Boana and Jack Brant limited a lot of what the Cardinals could do.

“They work really hard,” Garcar said. “We are really trying to put a lot of responsibility on them on communicating more and keeping us organized. This is probably our most complete defensive performance we’ve had so far this year. I thought our outside backs played well too.

“We talked about a few things that we thought that Canfield would like to do. We talked about it yesterday in a 10-minute walkthrough. Our guys just executed. They played well and (goalkeeper) Nate Hays made some big saves when he had to. We just want to continue to build.”

For Canfield and Poland, they’ll meet again on Oct. 15 in a game that could go a long way with momentum heading into the tournament.

“Canfield is an excellent team,” Garcar said. “One of the best teams in this area for sure this year. Being able to go their place and put up a good performance and really seeing where we are as a group, I think we are pleased with the result. Obviously you’d like to see a win in that instance. Maybe if we finish a few more where we had some chances, but they had a few chances as well. I think it was a really well-played game. Pretty clean across the board. Both teams did some very good things.”