Canfield tops Howland in opener, 65-46

The Cardinals knocked off the defending champs with a decisive first quarter.
By BRIAN RICHESSON
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
CANFIELD -- The Canfield High girls basketball team isn't out to impress. As long as the Cardinals play hard, they're happy.
"We're not going to wow anybody with our athletic ability," said coach Pat Pavlansky after the Cards defeated Howland 65-46 Thursday at Canfield High in a Metro Athletic Conference opener.
"We're not going to wow anybody with our shooting ability," Pavlansky said. "We're not going to wow anybody with our height and our strength.
"If there is one thing we do wow some people with, it's how hard and determined we play."
That's what impressed Pavlansky in a meeting between two teams that came into the game with a combined 9-0 record.
"We hadn't beaten them last year and they were the league champions," said Canfield's Kelly Williams, who scored a team-high 19 points. "That was motivation in itself to play hard."
First defeat: Howland (4-1) suffered its first loss after shooting 36 percent from the field. Tigers coach John Diehl said the game was lost in the first quarter.
"We just missed a ton of easy shots," Diehl said. "If we make shots we should make, we'd be up by six or eight. That [deficit] changed our whole defensive philosophy."
Howland led just once -- 9-8 late in the first quarter -- before Canfield (6-0) began to pull away.
With the help of Tee Lisotto, the Cardinals extended their lead to nine points in the second quarter.
Lisotto came off the bench to score all seven of her points, including a 3-pointer, in that second quarter.
"That was the unexpected star as far as I was concerned," Diehl said of Lisotto.
Pavlansky said, "It wasn't just the three shots she made. She had a couple of great steals from the back side."
Canfield used an 11-1 run to end the third quarter for a 43-29 lead.
Leading scorer: Marianne Krezeczowski tried to keep Howland in the game by scoring a game-high 23 points -- half of her team's total -- but it wasn't enough.
"We started looking to her a lot, especially in the second half when nobody else could shoot," Diehl said.
"I don't have a lot of streak shooters. The other girls are either shooting [well] that night or they're not."
In addition to Williams' team-high total, Erin Martin and Nicole Vlajkovich added 12 points each for the Cardinals.
"I've never scored 19 in my life," Williams said. "[Howland] put a lot of pressure on Erin Martin and Vlajkovich, so that opened me up for some shots."
Howland knows there is plenty of time to recover.
"I'm glad we got this out of the way. We don't have to come back here," Diehl said. "We'll just have to start working a little harder in practice."
richesson@vindy.com