Staff photo / Brian Yauger Canfield’s Ben Weaver (right) tries to block the shot off Poland’s Andrew Todd.

CANFIELD — The Battle of 224 always finds a way to deliver.

Despite multiple Poland rallies, the Canfield Cardinals maintained control of the game en route to a 58-47 victory over the rival Bulldogs.

“We didn’t pass as well as we needed to, and they turned us over more than we have, too,” Canfield coach John Cullen said. “We’ve had five turnovers in the last two games and we probably had 12 to 15 tonight. That’s not good, but we did make some shots at critical times.

“We have to do a better job of rebounding against those kinds of teams. Because they had three bigs which made it hard for them to guard us, and we had more guards which made it hard for us to box them out. It was kind of a war between our strengths and their strengths and they’re not the same, but they play a nice game. … We felt like we didn’t play a great game, but we just played good enough to win, and that’s a good win.”

Poland did a great job of limiting Canfield senior Dom Cruz. Fresh off a 37-point game which saw Cruz break the single-game 3-point record with 11 three-pointers, Cruz was held to just six points.

Luckily for the Cardinals, other players filled the bucket to fill in the gaps. Seniors Sam Castranova and Tony Russo eclipsed the double-figure mark with 13 and 10 points respectively.

“We’re not a one-man team, but he is the best shooter I’ve seen in Canfield since I’ve been here,” Cullen said. “He’s going to get gameplanned for, and it’s our job to make sure he gets the shots, but tonight we didn’t do a good enough job of what we worked on in practice for him to get more shots, so we’ll figure that out.”

A few times throughout the contest, namely a spurt in the third quarter which saw the Bulldogs outscore Canfield 17-12, Poland looked to have wrestled momentum away and were able to hold the lead throughout.

Crowding the paint and forcing turnovers did the trick.

“The main thing we wanted to do is you can’t give them second-chance points,” Cullen said. “They made a lot of buckets when they were making their run off those second chance points, and then we started getting more bodies in there and started coming up with more loose balls, so they didn’t get those second chance points down the stretch.”

The win marks Canfield’s fifth-straight, giving the Cardinals a 5-2 record after starting the year with two losses.

Poland falls to 6-2 on the year. Coach Eric Fender is happy with the team’s effort, but sees plenty to build on

It’s about resiliency, it’s about what’s next. We’ve got to learn from the mistakes tonight,” Fender said. “I think we probably had nine or 10 turnovers in the first half. We’ve got to clean that stuff up. But again, for me, it’s all things we can get better at, and it’s coming back when we practice the next time and us being ready to go. If our guys can go out and compete like they did tonight, we’ll be alright.”

The Bulldogs open the new year at home with league rival South Range.

Canfield closes out 2023 with a boys-girls doubleheader down in Beloit as they take on a one-loss West Branch team.

byauger@tribtoday.com