Poland vs Canfield

Gallery

Photos by Michael Taylor

By Charles Grove

cgrove@vindy.com

CANFIELD

It may not be quite the ending to the season the Canfield Cardinals were hoping for. But a Week 10 win over their rival Poland may just be sweet enough to tide the Cards over if they don’t sneak into a playoff spot.

Jake Cummings, Paul Breinz and Vinnie Fiorenza all ran for touchdowns and Matt Zaremski caught another as Canfield rolled Poland 29-14 to win the Battle of 224 and the traveling trophy.

“We look forward to this game all year,” Cummings said. “Our only focus was getting the trophy back. That trophy means the world to us and it’s great to have it back in our hands. I got to carry it off the field. It’s the best feeling in the world.”

The real heroes of the game were the Canfield defensive tackles and ends. Poland’s leading rusher, quarterback Jonah Spencer, was limited to 25 yards on 16 carries and running back Reid Gould managed just 14 yards on nine carries.

“We felt like we could control the line of scrimamge the majority of the night,” Canfield head coach Mike Pavlansky said. “Up front our guys were really active.”

That domination up front translated to the offensive line as well. Canfield racked up 254 yards rushing.

“[The offensive line] was opening up holes for me and the running backs,” Cummings said. “We just kept making big cuts and making big plays.”

Canfield looked like they might be counting missed opportunites on the scoreboard early on after the Cardinals went for it on fourth and three from inside the 10 yard line and came up empty.

After that, Paul French picked off Spencer a few plays later to give Canfield the ball back in great field position but Breinz fumbled into the end zone the next play and Poland was dodging bullets.

“Those things happen in a rivalry game,” Pavlansky said. “I told our guys they had to forget about them and to keep playing.”

Canfield did get on the board with a 5-yard run by Breinz and a fully-extended diving catch by Zaremski for a 40-yard TD that ended up making it 15-0 after a two-point conversion.

“Matt made a tremondous catch and Jake [Cummings] made a great throw,” Pavlansky said. “We had great protection and he lofted it up to where if Matt wasn’t going to catch it nobody was, and Matt made a heck of a play.”

“All I could think was, ‘I better catch it.’” Zaremski said.

Poland came back with a 30-yard touchdown pass from Spencer to Mike Diaz to make it 22-7 and a 36-yard pass to Gould to make it 29-14 with 4:29 to play, but the outcome was never in serious doubt. Still, Poland head coach Ryan Williams had nothing but positive things to say about his team.

Williams has had the task of trying to retool the offense after quaterback Cole Kosco went out a few weeks ago with concussion symptoms.

“We tried a couple different schemes to get something accomplished but Canfield’s defense just played so well,” Williams said.

Williams said there were positves to take away, most notably Poland’s 151 yards passing and the play of Diaz, who had 128 yards receiving.

“He’s great,” Williams said. “He’s a nice play maker for us. We’re looking forward to having him next year.”