Podolsky, Wollet lead Canfield
By Greg Gulas
CANFIELD — Matt Podolsky had 26 points and 14 rebounds while Gene Wollet added 22 points as the Canfield Cardinals ran past the Hubbard Eagles, 79-63, on Tuesday in an All-American Conference intra-divisional battle at the Cardinal gymnasium.
The Cardinals scored the first seven points of the game, built a 14-2 margin and never looked back as they raced to the 21-8 advantage after the first quarter of play.
For Podolsky, who combined with Wollet to score 13 of their team’s first quarter points, it was his third straight double-double as Canfield improved to 4-1 on the season.
It was their third consecutive win after splitting their first two outings of the season.
“Over the last several games, Matt [Podolsky] has been pretty darn good for us,” said Canfield coach John Cullen. “He’s narrowly missed a triple-double each time so you can see that his strength has been his consistency.
“He also has a high basketball IQ. After being out there for us the past three years he knows exactly what we want done and what we expect, sometimes even finishing my sentences,” added Cullen.
“We knew that Hubbard wasn’t going to quit so even with a nice lead at halftime, we knew that they would keep coming at us.
“We haven’t been in this much foul trouble this season so we’ll have to address that before our next time out,” Cullen added.
Podolsky added nine more points in the second period as Canfield outscored the Eagles, 23-11 to forge a 44-19 halftime margin.
The Cardinals were on fire in the first half, canning 17 of 29 buckets from the field while holding their Trumbull County counterparts to just 6 of 21 or 28.5 percent.
“This was a learning experience for us tonight. We played some pretty good teams to go 4-0 but the key was that we were able to finish our shots,” said Hubbard coach Rick Fox.
“John Cullen teams are well-coached and always play hard and tonight they prevented us from finishing those shots,” he added.
“When you’re down by 25 at halftime, that’s a lot of ground to make up in the second half. We just didn’t get it done tonight,” Fox said.
The Eagles did make some noise after the intermission as they forced 12 of the Cardinals 25 turnovers in the third quarter, cutting the Canfield lead at one point to 46-30.
But Wollet keyed the Cardinals’ comeback by hitting two 3-pointers and adding nine of his points the remainder of the period as Canfield was able to build a 58-37 lead.
A triple and subsequent three-point play by Wollet then helped the Cardinals to a 68-48 advantage.
“Last year, Hubbard had a great second half and beat us which left a bad taste in our mouths.” said Podolsky.
“Even with a big lead at halftime we knew that we would have to keep up the intensity if we expected to win.”
Kurtis Drummond led five Eagles with 15 points while both he and Mike Lopuchovsky each had seven rebounds.