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Cardinals hold off Spartans
DiGiacomo scores 21 for Canfield
By Steve WILAJ
BOARDMAN
It surprised Canfield coach Todd Muckleroy — considering he thought his Cardinals were in good shape to handle a full-court press.
But when the Boardman High School boys basketball team ratcheted up its pressure in the second half and cut Canfield’s lead to seven points with about two minutes remaining, Muckleroy saw something else from his team.
“We just weren’t making the right decisions,” he said. “Credit [Boardman] for getting in the right spots defensively. But we just didn’t make good decisions with the basketball and we weren’t doing the typical things that I thought we would.”
However, the Cardinals recovered to make just enough of the right decisions, holding on to beat the Spartans, 57-54, on Friday.
Sam DiGiacomo paced Canfield — which committed nine second-half turnovers — with 21 points and 16 rebounds, while Mason Mangapora added 12 points.
“They got up in us and pressured us,” DiGiacomo said. “But we just had to get used to passing out of the press. We made a couple mistakes, but did enough.”
Canfield (12-3, 6-2 All-American Conference Red Tier) took a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter.
But behind its press and consecutive 3-pointers by John Ryan — who scored a game-high 22 points — Boardman cut the Cardinals lead to 55-49 with 1:35 remaining. Another Ryan 3 made it 56-52 with 1:13 left.
The Spartans (5-9, 2-6) then received another possession still facing a four-point deficit, but missed two 3-pointers around the 30-second mark in what basically wrapped the game for Canfield.
“We were struggling offensively in the first half, so we tried to speed things up a little bit,” Boardman coach Pat Birch said. “Eventually it worked on them, but it was just a little bit too late.”
The Spartans — who also received 17 points from Holden Lipke and were playing without top scorer Gannon Murray (injury) — fell behind 20-13 at halftime. They then trailed 41-31 after three quarters when Canfield’s Julian Vitto made a 3-pointer to beat the buzzer.
“When you hold them to 20 at the half, you think you should have a lead,” Birch said. “Then we couldn’t get a shot at the end of the third and they hit a 3 to close it — that hurt.
“It’s an adjustment [without Murray]. He’s a kid that creates a lot for us. But Ryan and Lipke have really stepped up for us the last two games with great efforts.”
But their big performances couldn’t top that of Canfield’s senior center. DiGiacomo made 8 of 10 shots and went 3 of 4 at the foul line.
“I just want to thank my teammates for getting me the ball,” he said. “I couldn’t do that without them. We played well out there. Obviously we fell apart a little bit there at the end, but it’s a great team win just to keep it together.”
Brandon McFall added 11 points for the Cardinals while Vitto scored 10 points.
“[DiGiacomo’s] been pretty vanilla the past several games, but he needs to play well for us offensively for us to be successful,” Muckleroy said. “He opens up a lot of other opportunities for our guards.”
Boardman is hoping its injured guard, Murray, will be back in action on Friday. Birch said he “stretched some ligaments” in his left ankle on Jan. 15 against Harding, but is on the recovery.
As for Canfield, next up for the Cardinals is a big match-up at Warren Harding on Tuesday. It will be the second meeting this season between the two teams (the Raiders won the first).
“We want to challenge our kids and say ‘If you work hard, then you can be competitive with them and body up with them,’ ” Muckleroy said. “You’re playing one of the best teams in the area, so that’s how you have to motivate the guys.”