Canfield lights up the gym in 79-55 victory over Salem

By Chuck Housteau

CANFIELD — The Canfield High boys basketball team’s game plan against Salem was borrowed from a Motel 6 advertising theme.

“I told our players our slogan for tonight’s game was ‘leave the light on,’ the entire game,” Canfield basketball coach John Cullen said.

The Cardinals only hit the dim switch early in the game but the light came on in bright in the second quarter and stayed that way throughout as Canfield knocked off the Quakers, 79-55.

Canfield pulled away from a 21-20 lead with three minutes remaining in the second quarter and went on a 14-2 run fueled by two 3-pointers by Dan Campolito and seven straight points by junior Mike Podolsky to open up a 35-22 lead at the break.

“Lately, we’ve played well but we’ve been hot and cold and I wanted a strong effort for the whole game,” Cullen said. “We borrowed our slogan from Motel 6 and for the most part played tonight with the light on all game.

Cullen said that the late first half run put the Cardinals in a nice position.

“We got a nice little spurt there,” Cullen said. “We did a good job of passing and finding the open man and knocked down some big shots.”

Salem opened the game fresh off a big win over a good Newton Falls team and game the Cardinals something to think about early in the game.

“We knew we were coming in here for a dogfight and had to do a lot of things correctly,” Salem coach Will Klucinec said. “We were doing a couple good things early on and all of a sudden we made a few bad decisions and some turnovers and they made some big shots to open up a lead.

“They put us in a hole and that was a tribute to [Canfield’s] defense.”

The Quakers kept the game close by forcing Canfield to commit fouls and they took advantage to stay within 18-14 in the first quarter despite Podolsky’s 10-point explosion in the first quarter.

The junior guard finished with a game high 23 points.

“Mike’s done a much better job of letting the game come to him lately,” Cullen said. “He isn’t forcing things and he is getting open looks.”

In the second half, Canfield began to go inside more and was successful in opening up the lead to 56-33 after three periods.

Junior forward Justen Vrabel had six of his 13 points in the third period and Casey Carroll added four of his 11 in the quarter.

Vrabel was a workhorse on both ends of the floor and also grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds.

“We knew it would be a tough game,” Podolsky said. “We’ve both played some good teams and we came out a little sloppy at first but we came together as the game went along.

“Coach told us we had to play a good game the entire night and I think we did.”

The Quakers (5-3) got 17 points and five rebounds from sophomore Trent Toothman and 10 points from Jordan Strabala. Freshman Trent Kenreigh added seven points.