Given time to think, Canfield opts to go for (and get) the win

By Chuck Housteau

CANFIELD — Canfield coach Mike Pavlansky took advantage of a timeout called by Dover following the Cards touchdown in a second overtime session and decided his team had played enough football.

The Cardinals trailed the Tornadoes 21-20 with a pending extra point kick but decided to go for the win instead.

Holder and quarterback Brett Cooper executed a beautiful fake extra point attempt, got up and tossed a perfect pass to a wide open Jon Rogers that gave the Cardinals (3-0) a stunning 22-21 win in double overtime at Canfield.

“They were much bigger than we were and they were just running [quarterback Marcus Mamarella] right at us and we didn’t have an answer for that,” Pavlansky said. “So when they took the timeout I said, ‘Let’s just try to win this right here.’

“We had enough confidence in our kids that they could pull it off and they executed it perfectly.”

And if the Tornadoes hadn’t called a timeout?

“We would have probably kicked it and kept on playing,” Pavlansky said.

Cooper said the call during the timeout was totally unexpected.

“I was actually very surprised,” Cooper said. “I thought we were just going to kick it and live to play another day but it was great that our coaches had enough trust in us to make a call like that.

“It worked out great.”

The drama was set up because the Cardinals seemingly willed themselves to come back against a team that clearly dominated them at times.

The two teams scored rather easily in both overtime sessions.

Mamarella, who rushed 33 times for 107 yards, scored on runs of 14 and 1 yards while Canfield countered with touchdown runs by Cooper from a yard out and Kyle Vaclav on a 2-yard scamper.

“This was a great finish by everyone from special teams to defense to the fans,” said Vaclav. “There are no second chances out there. You have to go all out and I think we did that tonight.”

Dover showed their offensive firepower in the game’s first drive by marching 39 yards following a fumble recovery.

Mamarella ran four times in the drive and completed two passes including a perfect touchdown pass to Ian Drapcho to take a 7-0 lead.

The Tornadoes would score no more during regulation play although they moved the ball easily at times.

Canfield defenders hung in there and made big plays, had key sacks and forced key turnovers throughout the next three quarters.

“I can’t say enough about our guys to hold that caliber of team to seven points after they scored 27 and 44 points against two very good football teams,” Pavlansky said. “Its just a tribute to our guys and how hard they played.”

Canfield finally tied the game late in the second quarter following a punt by Dover.

Canfield marched 42 yards in 10 plays before Vaclav scored on a one yard run. Billy Fisher kicked the tying extra point.

Vaclav rushed for 69 yards on 21 carries while Cooper threw just enough and successfully enough to keep the Tornadoes honest.

Cooper completed 5 of 7 passes for 88 yards.

“Early this week we heard all the chatter about how good this Dover team was,” Cooper said. “But we new what we have and we just worked our butts off to pull together and pull this off.

“It was awesome.”

Canfield’s defense limited to Dover’s explosive offense to 254 yards and made the biggest play of the night late in the fourth quarter to knock the Tornadoes out of field goal position with the game tied at 7-7.

With Dover on the Canfield 31 on third and 10, Canfield’s defensive linemen Nick Reinthaler and John Liszka sacked Maramella for a 14-yard loss to end the threat.