Fine finish: Hoelzel’s 40 helps Cards drop Poland

Canfield rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to defeat its arch-rivals.

CANFIELD — With 35 seconds left and the best game of his life already in his back pocket, Canfield senior Joe Hoelzel stepped to the free throw line with a chance to hit the 40-point mark and provide an exclamation mark on a game in which the Cardinals entered with several question marks.

He sank them both.

Poland was sunk.

Period.

“I don’t know how it happened,” said Hoelzel of erupting for a career-high in a 96-89 win over the Bulldogs. “It was the best game of my life.”

Cardinals coach John Cullen had a week to prepare for Poland’s press — the equivalent of giving an octopus an extra set of arms — and he emphasized opening up the floor, looking downcourt and finishing behind the Bulldogs’ defense. Hoelzel was the final piece of the press-breaker.

“All week, we practiced breaking the press and every time I’d be the last one down there,” said Hoelzel. “So coach just kept saying, ‘Finish, finish, finish. And take your time down there.’ And that’s what I did.”

The Cardinals (10-2, 2-0 All-American Conference Red Tier) actually trailed by 10 at halftime, but put on a basketball clinic over the final two quarters.

They outscored Poland 64-47 over that stretch, committed just four turnovers (compared to 13 in the first half) and made 17 of 22 from the line in the fourth quarter to put it away.

When told his team shot 20 of 28 from the floor in the second half, Cullen chuckled and said, “We couldn’t shoot that well if you left us in the gym overnight.”

“We know they’re going to score; we can’t stop them,” Cullen said. “Our goal in this game was to take away every player’s best move and make them beat us with their second-best move.

“On the other end, we had to score in transition. If you pass the ball well enough to get down there, you’ll get buckets.”

Canfield finished with 24 assists — Podolsky and Gene Wollet each had six — and out-rebounded the Bulldogs 43-32. Podolsky (20 points, 10 rebounds), Hoelzel (11 rebounds) and senior Justen Vrabel (20 points, 14 rebounds) all finished with double-doubles.

The loss overshadowed an unbelievable performance from Poland senior Niko Fatimus, who scored 42 points with 11 3-pointers — breaking his previous mark by one. He also went over 1,000 points for his career (he needed 34 entering the game) and scored 28 points in the fourth quarter.

And the crazy thing was, nearly all of those points came with him shooting well behind the 3-point line with a hand in his face.

“The only way to stop Niko is with a lead pipe,” Cullen said. “He was unstoppable.

“Wow, is he good.”

Ben Donlow added 20 points and 12 rebounds for the Bulldogs (9-1, 0-1), while Luke Wollet had 12 points and David Baker eight points with seven rebounds and six blocks.

“They [Canfield] did a great job,” Poland coach Ken Grisdale said. “John Cullen does an awesome job preparing his kids. He came up with some things and his kids did an excellent job executing the game plan very well.

“All the credit in the world to them.”

Grisdale expects his team to rebound — “Sometimes you need to get knocked down so you can get up and go higher,” he said — and it’s a safe bet the Bulldogs will be motivated for Round 2 on Feb. 26.

“I know one thing,” Cullen said. “We’ll be looking forward to playing them again.

“Just not right away.”

scalzo@vindy.com