Podolsky finds his shot, lifts Canfield

By Chuck Housteau

The birthday boy scored 21 points as the Cardinals rolled past Liberty.

CANFIELD — Canfield High basketball player Mike Podolsky celebrated his birthday in style Friday night.

The junior guard scored 21 points, including 14 in the first quarter, to help Canfield pin a 68-52 loss on Liberty in a non-conference game at Canfield.

Podolsky said the game was a nice birthday present to himself and couldn’t have come at a better time for the Cardinals.

Canfield (3-1) was coming off a tough loss to Hickory and Podolsky had been struggling with his shot in the team’s first three games.

“I had a feeling I would have a good game,” Podolsky said.

“It was a fun day and the last day of classes before Christmas break and I was feeling really good.

“It was fun to play well in our first game here at home this season.”

Podolsky hit his first six shots from the field, including two 3-pointers to help the Cards race out to 17-6 lead over the visiting Leopards.

“That’s the way Mike is capable of shooting the basketball,” Canfield coach John Cullen said.

“He hadn’t been shooting the ball very well but he came out big tonight.

“That helped us get out to a big lead and maybe forced [Liberty] to do some things that they aren’t good at doing.”

Canfield finished the first period shooting 66 percent (10-15) from the field and opened up a 25-15 lead heading into the second quarter.

Podolsky made two more baskets in the second period and Canfield’s defense began to force Liberty mistakes that opened up the lead at 40-27 at the break.

“We wanted to be able to do two things tonight and we failed at both,” Liberty coach Dan Gorski said.

“We thought we could control the boards and we needed to play more under control.

“We had way too many turnovers.”

Canfield defenders and Liberty’s own sloppy play contributed to 23 turnovers by the Leopards.

“We’re a work in progress,” Gorski said.

“We play with energy and that’s good on the defensive end but we can’t control it on offense and make too many stupid mistakes.”

Canfield meanwhile started to struggle shooting the ball and Liberty climbed back in the game in the third quarter.

The Leopards (2-3) cut the lead to 6 points at 46-40 with 3:07 left in the period but Canfield’s Griffin Todd and Kevin Heagerty hit back-to-back 3-pointers to push the lead back out to 52-40.

“We hit some big shots late in the third period to regain control of the game,” Cullen said.

“Heagerty hadn’t played much but he shoots well in practice so I put him in and ran a play for him right away and he hit a big shot.”

Canfield pulled away after that as Canfield’s big men, Casey Carroll and Justen Vrabel, took control of the boards and made some easy baskets.

Carroll finished with 12 points and nine rebounds while Vrabel had 12 points and seven boards.

Liberty was led in scoring by Anthony Cleveland with 13 points while Blair Williams added 12.