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Early lead helps Canfield top Boardman
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Boardman’s Lauren Pavlansky and Canfield’s Emily Ellis (54) and Erin Risner (42) all make a play for a rebound during the second half of their All-American Conference game Wednesday at Canfield High School. The Cardinals downed the Spartans, 56-34.
Canfield dominates first quarter to stay unbeaten in AAC Red
By Joe Scalzo
CANFIELD
Boardman High girls basketball coach Jeff Hammerton lost his hair years ago, so you can’t blame Wednesday’s game against Canfield for that.
But his voice?
“It took everything I had to get them [the Spartans] to play the way I wanted,” he said, “including my voice.”
Canfield’s first-year coach Matt Reel had no such problems, not after his senior-dominated lineup jumped out to an 18-point first-quarter lead en route to a 56-34 win that kept the Cardinals unbeaten in the All-American Conference’s Red Tier.
“We’ve had a couple games where we’ve played well in spurts,” Reel said. “But yeah, that first quarter, we played pretty well.”
Canfield (12-2, 6-0 AAC Red) needed two overtimes to beat Boardman in their first meeting on Dec. 20, but this one was never in doubt, even with the Spartans’ full-court pressure giving the Cardinals fits during the second and third quarters.
Senior Erin Risner scored 16 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for Canfield, while Emily Ellis added nine points and five rebounds and Rachel Tinkey had seven points, 11 rebounds and five assists.
Krista Johnson led Boardman (7-8, 1-5) with 12 points, five rebounds and three assists.
The Cardinals’ size advantage played a big role in the win — they out-rebounded Boardman 47-28 — but so did their unselfishness. Canfield had 16 assists on its 23 field goals.
“Everyone is unselfish on this team,” Ellis said. “We look for each other to get the best shot. We don’t take the shot for ourselves if the next one is the best one.”
“We kind of joke that there’s not many games where we have an athletic advantage in the normal sense, but we think we have pretty good basketball players, smart players,” Reel added. “People like to key on Rachel, with good reason, but we have other weapons we can use.
“Savannah Barko, Emily Ellis — they play a role for us. They don’t care who scores and they’re key to our success.”
This offseason, Reel took over for 19-year veteran Pat Pavlansky, who left behind one of the Valley’s most talented, and experienced, rosters. While Reel joked that his five seniors “cover up a lot of rookie mistakes,” he’s not a rookie. He spent three years as South Range’s varsity coach and has been an assistant for both Pavlansky and former Canfield boys coach John Cullen.
“Throughout the years Pav gave me a lot of input, so the girls knew what we were going to do,” said Reel, whose father was a former teacher and middle school coach at Canfield. “Having that experience back was nice.”
Canfield plays four more league games, including a key matchup Saturday at Howland, whose lone league loss came against the Cardinals on Dec. 17 (45-32).
“We think Howland is the toughest place to play in the league,” Reel said. “But this is a Division I league, so everyone is pretty good.”
Boardman isn’t nearly as good as Hammerton would like. The Spartans don’t play any seniors — they start four juniors and a freshman — but that’s no excuse, he said.
“This is Game 15,” he said. “The young excuse doesn’t work.”