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Canfield seeing Red after win
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Poland Vs. Canfield
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By Joe Scalzo
The Cardinals clinched a share of the league title and a playoff berth with a 16-0 win over Poland.
POLAND — Canfield senior Kyle Vaclav had just made the two biggest plays in the biggest game of his life to beat his school’s biggest rival, so, naturally, when asked about it, he chalked it up to ... what?
Heart? Desire? Coaching? Effort?
No, no, no and no.
Here are his quotes:
Big play No. 1: “I got lucky.”
Big play No. 2: “It was just luck.”
Luck? Hardly. Luck had little to do with either play, and luck had little to do with the Cardinals’ 16-0 win over arch-rival Poland on Friday at Dave Pavlansky Field.
Canfield was just better.
“They played pretty much flawless tonight,” said Bulldogs coach Mark Brungard. “The execution and the intensity was all there for Canfield.
“Give Coach [Mike] Pavlansky and his staff a lot of credit.”
The Cardinals entered the game with more at stake and played like it throughout. Poland had already clinched a home playoff game and a share of the All-American Conference Red Tier title, but was still favored against a Canfield team that hadn’t been challenged since it was still technically summer.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, needed a win to make the postseason and capture a share of the title. It was win or go home — and all they needed to do was shut down a high-powered Bulldog offense that featured the two best skill position players in the league: RB Luke Wollet and WR Darius Patton.
“It was a very hard task,” said Vaclav, whose team was knocked out of the playoff race after losing last year’s finale to Poland. “We just realized we didn’t want to go through what we did last year in the offseason and leave our juniors with that taste of failure.”
Vaclav opened the scoring with the game’s second-biggest play, which took place with three minutes left in the first quarter. Vaclav returned a punt 75 yards — starting right, moving left, then cutting back to the right — to give the Cardinals a 7-0 lead.
“It was just luck,” he said. “We had it set up for the right and I saw a big gap to the left and Poland did a great job of blocking me off. So I cut back and got a bunch of blockers who helped me take it to the house.”
After two Billy Fisher field goals made it 13-0 late in the third quarter, Vaclav then made the game’s biggest play on Poland’s next offensive snap.
Matched up against the electrifying Patton, Vaclav got beat on a fly route and found himself 5 yards behind him with the ball in the air. Fortunately for him, Colin Reardon’s pass was a little short, giving Vaclav a chance to catch up.
Just inside the 15-yard-line — more than 50 yards past the line of scrimmage — he stripped the ball (think Alabama’s George Teague in the 1992 Sugar Bowl or Maurice Clarett in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl) and returned it 20 yards.
It was the only time Poland’s offense got inside Canfield’s 20-yard-line all night.
“All I knew is I got beat on it,” Vaclav said. “We noticed on film he holds the ball a little bit loose so I just tried to go for it and I got lucky.”
Patton had eight catches for 128 yards, but the Bulldogs never let him loose the rest of the game. Reardon finished 16 of 24 for 192 yards and two interceptions and was sacked six times, while Wollet (who willed Poland to last year’s win over Canfield) was held to 16 yards on 12 carries.
Vaclav carried 10 times for 39 yards for Canfield (9-1, 3-1), which shares the league title with Poland and Howland for the second straight year. Quarterback Brett Cooper added 48 yards rushing and 36 passing.
“This is a rivalry,” said Pavlansky, whose team was playing on the field named after his father. “Even if we’re 0-9, I hope we play with this much energy against these guys.
“We certainly believe we’ve got a very, very good defense. They’ve played that way all year long. But to come over here and shut them out, that’s extra special.”
scalzo@vindy.com