Team

Canfield

Record	Div.	Conf.
11/2	Div. III	All-American Conference Red Tier

Team

Howland

Record	Div.	Conf.
1/9	Div. III	All-American Conference Red Tier

By ERIC FORTUNE

sports@vindy.com

HOWLAND

Coming down the home stretch, a lot was at stake between rivals Canfield and Howland — an All-American Conference Red Tier title and also the opportunity to play past Week 10.

The Cardinals did just enough to escape with a 20-14 victory and keep both goals alive.

Tthe Tigers (6-3, 2-1) were left with a lot of “what ifs.”

“We had our chances,” Howland coach Dominic Menendez said. “That’s a good football team. They’re fighting for the same reasons we are. They made less mistakes than we did. We left some points out there in the first half. In the second half, we battled back. The kids never stopped playing. We just got beat tonight.”

The Cardinals (7-2, 3-0) scored on an eight play, 76-yard opening drive when Jake Cummings ran it in from three yards out to make it 7-0.

But Howland stiffened and gave up just 24 yards of offense through the rest of the half.

It was on the other side of the ball that let the Tigers down as they were intercepted twice in the end zone, missed a 39-yard field goal and a had 66-yard punt return called back on an illegal block.

All of this despite running 16 plays in Canfield territory.

“All those plays are big in a league ballgame especially when you are on the road,” Canfield coach Mike Pavlansky said. “We caught some breaks and our defensive guys read those pass plays in the end zone and we were able to pick two off.

“We got fortunate I think on that punt return in that we lost some contain lanes. It’s part of the game. Our defense lined up and played.”

In the third quarter, Canfield extended its lead to 14-0 on a drive that took over six minutes off the clock as Cummings ran the ball nine of the 12 plays.

Cummings finished with 130 yards rushing on 24 attempts.

Though his biggest play came after the Tigers had cut the Cardinal lead in half in the early stages of the fourth quarter when he found a wide open Troy Williams on a 66-yard slant to make it a one-possession ballgame.

“We were running motion,” Cummings said. “We practiced that all week and the safety bit down on the motion and Troy ended up wide open. I just didn’t want to overthrow him.”

It was an even bigger gamble because the Cardinals had -4 yards passing in the game at that point.

“We knew we had to do something,” Pavlansky said. “They were stuffing our run really well. We just couldn’t get anything going. Hat’s off to their defense. They played hard. We pulled something out of the bag that we’d been waiting to use and it was a great call by our wide receivers coach Dean Conley.”

The Tigers responded on their ensuing possession to make it 20-14 with 3:47 left, but saw their final drive stall at the Canfield 40-yard line as the game ended.