Shaking things up

February 5, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Canfield tops Tigers, opens league race

CANFIELD

Imagine a Thanksgiving feast with circus peanuts for dessert. Or a two-week European vacation that ends in Chechnya.

You can quibble about the finish. Or you can focus on the good stuff.

The Canfield High boys basketball team chose the latter, dominating the first 30 minutes of Friday’s game before struggling down the stretch in a 60-55 victory over visiting Howland.

“This was our best game,” said Canfield senior guard Danny Campolito, “until the last minute when they started coming back.”

The Cardinals (5-10, 3-1 All-American Conference) jumped out to a 14-3 lead after one quarter and led by double digits for most of the game, avenging an overtime loss to Howland on Jan. 11 while handing the Tigers their first league loss.

“We came out fired up and ready to go,” said Campolito, who finished with 15 points. “We knew we needed this win.

“We were just getting back at them for getting us in overtime last time. We knew we should have had that one. We knew we were the better team.”

Maybe, but they were also an inexperienced team. Campolito was the only returning starter from last year’s league championship team that was heavy on seniors and short on depth. That turnover extended to the bench, as Todd Muckleroy took over for longtime coach John Cullen.

Campolito had to adjust his game this winter — he was more of a shooter last season, while he’s more of a driver/scorer this year — and the rest of the team needed time to grow up.

They lost six straight to start the season, with four of those losses coming by four points or fewer, but have now won four straight and join Poland just a half-game behind Howland (9-5, 4-1) in the league race.

“We’ve been a team all year long that’s shown a lot of energy,” said Muckleroy. “When our kids play 100 miles an hour and look to get to spots and make easy passes, we can get shot opportunities.

“It’s just whether we can knock them down. We did tonight.”

Canfield made nine 3-pointers and led by 17 with less than three minutes left. But the Cardinals’ poor free throw shooting (they made 3 of 8 from the line in the final two minutes) and the Tigers’ frenzied helped Howland close the game on a 15-3 run.

Tigers coach Dan Campana wondered why his team didn’t show that kind of energy earlier.

“We always talk about having to play four quarters and tonight was a prime example,” said Campana. “We came out sluggish and we didn’t look like we were ready to go. Against a good team, you can’t take a quarter off.”