The Cardinals wrestling team just hasn’t experienced a lot of lows over the past four years, with Canfield becoming one of the top Division II teams in the state.

However, Barber and Miller weren’t always two of the team’s best wrestlers — as they are now. They endured through some tough years, individually, as underclassmen. Now, as captains, their roles have changed.

The two senior standouts have to help a large group of underclassmen fight through a season where the Cardinals may not be the top dogs in the Eastern Ohio Wrestling League. Beaver Local proved that Wednesday with a 43-29 come-from-behind victory at Canfield High School.

The loss was a learning experience for a young-but-talented Cardinals team, which led, 26-0, before the Beavers, one of the state’s current top D-II teams, took over.

Staff photos / Joe Simon Canfield’s Logan Miller, top right, locks up a cradle on Beaver Local’s Nathan Cox during their match Wednesday at Canfield High School. Miller, a senior captain, eventually pinned Cox.

“We’re a really young team — I think we had eight sophomores in the lineup,” Barber said, “so when we’re facing a very experienced Beaver Local team, we have to get back into the room tomorrow, train and go over what we did wrong. We’re not going to hang our heads. Our guys battled hard. They fought as hard as they could. There’s nothing we can really do. We’re a little down this year (compared to years past), but we’re just going to keep fighting. I don’t see us hanging our heads from this loss. I think we’re going to gain from it, which is very important down the long run.”

Barber understands the importance of progressing through the season.

The 120-pounder is a two-time state qualifier, and he learned how to reach that point from some of Canfield’s all-time great wrestlers (Anthony D’Alessio, Nick Crawford, David Crawford, Georgio Poullas, just to name a few). But all of them have all graduated, so Barber and Miller are using the knowledge and leadership skills they learned from those past wrestlers to help groom the next group of up-and-comers.

“(Barber and I) kind of go by the same philosophy,” said Miller, a 126-pound wrestler. “There are kids who will worry about who they’re wrestling. We just say, ‘Go out, wrestle and have fun.’ It’s just a match. Just go out and have fun. It doesn’t matter who you’re wrestling. Just go out and fight. If you lose, you lose. If you win, you win. Just go out and fight. That’s all we ask.”

Wednesday was a prime example of the ups and downs of wrestling.

Staff photo / Joe Simon Canfield’s Kip Stewart, top, turns Beaver Local’s Zane McCoy to his back during their 285-pound bout Wednesday in Canfield High School.

The Cardinals cruised to a 26-0 lead, with Barber recording an 18-2 technical fall and Miller securing a second-period pin along the way. However, Beaver Local possesses one of the stronger middle weight groups in the EOWL, and the Beavers rattled off eight straight wins to take an insurmountable 43-26 lead. The Cardinals’ Michael Crawford, the younger brother of Nick and David, closed the match with a 3-2 victory over Tristan Murphy at 220 pounds.

Canfield coach Steve Pitts understood the challenge of facing Beaver Local, and while he was disappointed to lose, he liked that his Cardinals didn’t back down against one of the state’s elite teams.

“They’ve got that lineup in the middle that’s hard to stop,” Pitts said. “We just told our kids to go battle, and they did that for the most part. … We won the matches we should have, and we probably lost the matches we weren’t favored in, and that’s OK. I liked the way our kids battled, especially with everything going on; we missed a week of practice (because of the pandemic). But the kids are having fun, so that’s good.”

The next step, Pitts said, is to learn from the defeat and not make the same mistakes again.

It’s not an easy step to take, and Pitts said it’s important for leaders like Barber and Miller to remind the young Cardinals that there is promise ahead for Canfield, but only if they respond to adversity the right way.

“Their leadership with the younger guys is tremendous,” Pitts said of Barber and Miller. “I’m super proud of them and their effort, and it’s going to be a good year for them. And these guys, they’ll grab guys after practice and roll around with them. If they look over and someone’s not doing what they’re supposed to, they’ll say something. It’s like having two other coaches in the room. That helps out a lot.”

The Cardinals host a dual team tournament this Saturday starting at 10 a.m. in Canfield.