Canfield girls top Poland
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POLAND -- The Canfield girls basketball team won its fourth consecutive game Thursday with a 41-30 road victory over Poland. The win came with a price, however, as the Cardinals' starting point guard, Camie Dill, suffered an ankle injury for the second straight game.
Unlike her injury on Monday, when she twisted her left ankle in the first quarter against Cardinal Mooney and returned in the second, Dill did not check back into Thursday's game against Poland after appearing to twist her right ankle halfway through the first period.
After the game, Canfield coach Matt Reel said Dill will have the benefit of rest due to a light upcoming schedule for the Cardinals.
"The nice thing is we have a week off. We play Streetsboro next Saturday, then we're getting into the tournament the following Wednesday," Reel said. "We think she's going to be OK. It's unfortunate, but it comes at a time where we can get her some rest, we can get her healthy and get her back hopefully."
With Dill out and Jenna Triveri inactive due to an ankle injury of her own, Canfield seniors Grace McQuiston and Cami Hritz, as well as sophomore Carly Fleming, rose to the occasion and scored a combined 30 points between the three.
After taking a 19-11 lead into the half, the Cardinals pushed the advantage to as many as 12 in the third quarter. Poland's Elliana Thompson kept the Bulldogs in it, though, by scoring seven straight and cutting the deficit to five with less than a minute remaining in the third.
Poland pulled within five again to make it a 31-26 game early in the fourth, but the Bulldogs then went scoreless for nearly four minutes as Canfield scored 10 unanswered, established a 15-point lead and effectively ended the game.
Thompson scored all of her team-high 11 points in the third quarter. Hritz led the Cardinals with 11 points of her own.
Despite the loss, Poland head coach Nick Blanch was pleased with his team's performance Thursday.
"Our kids played really hard. I'm very proud of what our kids did tonight. There's times we win in here, and it's just like, 'We could have done a lot better tonight.' Our kids really stepped up," Blanch said.
Blanch also commended Thompson for taking over for injured senior Mary Brant, who Blanch called the team's best player. Blanch said Thompson had a "baptism by fire" with Brant's absence and has handled the sudden change well.
"She has been tremendous at staying poised and in trying to be positive not only for herself, but for her teammates. I'm very proud of her and she has a bright future in this program," Blanch said.
Poland (12-8, 10-1) have dominated its Northeast-8 conference opponents but have struggled against non-conference foes. Thursday's loss to Canfield dropped the Bulldogs' non-conference record to 2-7, but Blanch said he's not concerned with that.
"The teams we have played [out of conference], all of them have been pretty good. We do that for a reason. And the reason is, if we schedule all cupcakes, when do we ever get challenged?", Blanch said. "So I have no worries about that. At the end of the day, I just want us to get better as we go. And I really believe these teams have challenged us and made us better as we've gone along."
Poland finishes up its regular season with its final non-conference test at Hawken on Saturday before the season finale against Hubbard on Monday.
Riding a four-game winning streak, Reel said he is proud of his team's progression throughout the year.
"I think as we've gotten better this season, I think this team has learned how to grind out wins. Obviously with Camie going down again, we had some people step up, and I don't think they were ready to do that earlier in the year," Reel said.
Canfield (14-7, 4-4) does not play until Feb. 17, when the Cardinals host Streetsboro.
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