Just the right mixture
Canfield volleyball team puts it all together
By ED PUSKAS
CANFIELD
On paper, maybe the Canfield High School volleyball team shouldn’t have gotten this far.
The Cardinals returned just four players with varsity experience and took to the court in August with a first-year head coach. That might signal a rebuilding mode for some programs.
But with one of those players being the school’s all-time leader in kills and the new coach bringing with him 50 years of volleyball experience, maybe Canfield’s return to the Division II regional tournament isn’t so surprising.
The Cardinals (22-3) will meet Tallmadge (13-13) in a semifinal at 7:30 tonight at Stow-Munroe Falls High School.
John Tokash, who has spent a lifetime playing and coaching volleyball, has Canfield on an 18-match winning streak.
“We’re playing good volleyball,” said Tokash, who also has coached Cardinal Mooney, East and Youngstown State. “We’re basically healthy and we have good chemistry.”
The Cardinals’ top players are senior co-captains Sabrina Mangapora and Nicole Luklan, who can spike opponents into submission at the net. Mangapora become the first Canfield player to record 1,000 career kills earlier this season.
“She has a little over 1,200 now,” Tokash said.
The Cardinals’ other starters are sophomore Darby Hepola and freshman Morgan Leonard (both middle hitters), freshman Emma Hartshorn and sophomore Janie Rafoth (both setters) and sophomore Rachel Rafoth (libero).
The Rafoths are twins, as are juniors Jackie and Ana Cook. Jackie comes off the bench to play the front row and Ana does the same on the back row for the Cardinals.
The Blue Devils were just 9-13 during the regular season, but caught fire when tournament play began. Senior outside hitter Emma Mathieson and senior libero Demi DeLorenzo are Tallmadge’s top players.
The Blue Devils and Cardinals had one common regular-season opponent — Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary. The Irish beat Tallmadge, but lost to Canfield.
Mangapora likes what that says about the Cardinals’ chances tonight.
“Tallmadge has to be pretty good to get this far, but I think that puts us at an advantage,” she said. “When we played [Akron SV-SM], it was kind of in the middle of the season and we really weren’t peaking yet.”
Mangapora isn’t ready for her senior season to end.
“We have the opportunity and the skill level to go as far as we want to this year,” she said. “It’s kind of on us, whether or not we really want it.”