Canfield shoots its way past Poland
Cardinals make 10 3’s in 56-37 win over Bulldogs to capture the ‘Battle of 224’
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POLAND -- There's no replacement for good shooting.
In recent games, even though Canfield has been winning, the Cardinals haven't been hitting shots as well as they'd like, especially from beyond the three-point arc.
That changed Thursday night, as the Cardinals hit 10 threes against Poland to pull out a 56-37 victory over the Bulldogs and complete the season sweep of their crosstown archrival.
"We've got to make threes to get them out a little bit," said Canfield head coach Matt Reel. "We've got shooters, but we've been struggling lately shooting. (Thursday), we finally made some. Abby (Muckleroy) really got us going early and we're capable of that, that's what we do. We've got good shooters and we just had to persevere through a little bit of a slump the last few games."
Muckleroy got hot from distance early, hitting four threes in the first quarter, including three straight on back-to-back-to-back possessions and finishing with five for the game for a game-high 15 points.
She clearly had the green light to pull the trigger from deep right from the very start, attempting 11 triples in the first half alone.
"If the girl guarding me has their hands down, I'm probably going to shoot it," Muckleroy said. "I think shooting like that gives us a lot of confidence and it helps us on the defensive side, (as well)."
After Muckleroy hit her shots from deep early on, things started opening up for the rest of the Cardinals after halftime.
Carlie Harmon hit twice from deep in the second half, and finished with 14 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting night. Then Emme Rubin, Cami Hritz and Macey Kalina got in on the action as well, each hitting a three for their lone points of the night. Overall, Canfield shot 44.9 percent from the floor for the game.
"We always know that they're going to lift them -- they shot 31 of them the first time we played," said Poland head coach Nick Blanch. "I know they hit 10 of them, that's 30 points out of their 56. If we're going to lose, I'll lose to people launching threes before I give up points in the paint. We had a gameplan, we went through with it and they just kept making shots, so credit to them. When you're hot like that, and team's are hitting, it is what it is."
After the Cardinals had taken a 17-5 lead by the end of the first quarter, Poland was able to steadily claw back, opening the second by hitting a trio of threes themselves, banking in two of them.
"We started pulling the trigger," Blanch said. "Because in the first quarter, we were getting the looks, but we weren't pulling. We were just pump faking and then dribbing in and kicking it out. We were just hesitant for some reason and I don't know why. In the second quarter, we just let it fly and good things started happening when we did that.
"Our kids played hard, but when you're battling twos against threes, threes are going to win, especially when they're falling. We're not a three-point shooting team -- that's never been our strong suit this year. It's their strong suit."
However, even though Poland was able to outscore Canfield during the period, the Cardinals still led by seven at halftime.
The Bulldogs had cut the lead to three and looked poised to trim the deficit further or tie the game, but in the waning seconds of the first half, Canfield scored a pair of buckets to push the lead back out, including a buzzer-beating jumper from Harmon on a fast break as time expired.
Overall, Canfield's stout man-to-man defense was able to limit Poland to just 28.2 percent shooting for the game.
"Our defense has really come a long way this year," Reel said. "We're not really tall, but we think we've got pretty good length with our arms. Our girls really embrace trying to use it to our advantage on defense. We're not really crazy in terms of doing a multitude of things (defensively), but we just try to be really good at our man (defense)."
nmadhavan@tribtoday.com