Staff photo / Brian Yauger Canfield senior Alli Malinky tries to box out Kalliopi Gentis of Howland during the second half of Monday’s contest. Malinky scored one of Canfield’s goals.

HOWLAND — Three is the magic number.

The Canfield girls’ soccer team is off to a hot start after its third-consecutive shutout to start the year.

On Monday, the Cardinals took down Howland, 3-0, to move to 3-0 on the year.

Despite the finish, Cardinals coach Phil Simone noted how Canfield took a little while to get going, but once they got comfortable, the team was able to find the back of the net.

“We actually started slow in the first half,” Simone said. “They were pressing us a little bit. We settled in, started working the ball, soon we found some holes and the girls gained confidence and we were able to put in three goals in the first half.”

Seniors Sabrina Goodrich, Lauren Yohman and Alli Malinky, all found the back of the net in the first half as Canfield outshot the Tiges 17-2 on the night.

While the team’s offense has been important, tallying 12 goals across three games, it’s the team’s backfield that has kept the ball out of the net.

Pitching as many shutouts as they have games, the Canfield defense has been instrumental in the team’s success. Monday, while keeper Bayann Jadallah only had one save, Howland only registered two shots, with the other going wide.

Another important aspect of Canfield’s successful start this season has been the team’s dominance in the middle of the field.

“We’ve been working hard defensively, shutting down space, minimizing shots and winning that midfield battle,” Simone said. “I think the key to a game is winning at midfield.”

After an undefeated start, there isn’t much to complain about, but as the season goes on, Simone wants to see a more complete game out of his team.

“We need to put two solid halves together,” Simone said. “We’ve gone up in all three games, we’ve gone up by several goals and then we’ve kind of laid off, content with that and we let the other team get a little bit of momentum. We need to put that complete game together to try and put the other team under.”

The Cardinals take on Ursuline on Wednesday. The two haven’t met in a few years, so Simone is excited for the faceoff.

“This will be the first time we’ve played them in probably seven or eight years so I’m not sure about them,” he said. “I know (Ursuline coach) Roy Schmidt runs a pretty good program over there so we’ll take it like any other game. We’re not going to underestimate them. We’ll go in and play our best.”

As for Howland, the Tigers don’t have another game until next Wednesday against Solon. For the time being, the team is going to be working hard on finishing and coming out much stronger.

“The first half was all Canfield,” Tigers coach Greg Mitchell said. “We were just late to step defensively, not disciplined defensively at all, giving up wide open shots. Credit to them, they did some nice things and we weren’t disciplined enough defensively to close them down quick enough and gave them wide open looks and they capitalized on three of them.”