Staff photo / Preston Byers Howland pitcher Steven Bubon delivers during Monday’s loss to Canfield at Howland Township Park.

HOWLAND — Entering Monday’s All-American Conference (AAC) game vs. Canfield, Howland, once a 3-3 team, had won seven in a row, all by at least four runs and a majority by 10 or more. But Canfield and its starting pitcher, Ryan Weibling, proved too tough for a Howland offense that had scored 81 runs during the win streak. The Cardinals’ starter struck out 13 and limited the Tigers to three hits in what became the first shutout of Howland’s season.

After the loss, Tigers head coach Britt Taylor and his staff spent several minutes talking with the team in the home dugout at Howland Township Park. He said that the discussion, while relatively lengthy, was simple at its core.

“‘Hey, let’s keep our heads up,'” Taylor said he told his players. “‘We’re 10-4 right now. We’re having a good season.'”

On Tuesday, a day after Canfield hurt the Tigers’ AAC title hopes, the Cardinals officially eliminated the Tigers from championship contention and took the outright crown for themselves with a 13-3 home win vs. Howland.

However discouraging the losses, Taylor knows there is no reason to let one or two games affect another. In fact, being able to move past a rough loss is exactly how Howland turned around its season three weeks ago.

In their AAC opener on April 13, the Tigers took an early, one-run lead at home against Austintown Fitch. But then the Falcons scored four, and, after Howland responded with another run, Fitch scored four more en route to a 12-2 win.

The following day, in the second leg of the league back-to-back, Howland hung three runs on the Falcons in the first, three in the second, one in the third and five in the fourth to run-rule Fitch 12-0.

Taylor hopes that his team can do something similar now and avoid letting a promising season go to waste down the stretch.

“If you’ve got a baseball program, that’s a message that you need to be preaching 24/7, is you’re gonna fail, so get back up, get back out there and do it again. That’s the message every time,” Taylor said. “You’re gonna have days like this. Whether you’re Paul Skenes or [Shohei] Ohtani, you’re gonna have these games. And today was one of those.”

Taylor said after the win vs. Fitch that the Tigers’ bats were just starting to heat back up after having the first week and a half of April off due to spring break.

On Monday, big swings and extra-base hits were not necessarily required, although they certainly would not have hurt. The small things – or not doing them – hurt Howland’s chances.

The Tigers left at least one runner on base to end the first inning, as well as the second, the fourth and the fifth. Additionally, a runner was thrown out at home in the second, and another was caught stealing after a leadoff walk in the third.

“We’ve done a much better job of moving runners and putting guys in places where they need to be – situational baseball. We didn’t do that tonight. That’s where we struggled,” Taylor said.

Over the final two weeks of the regular season, Howland has seven games scheduled, two of which are within the conference: the Tigers play Boardman in their final AAC series.

“This is the toughest conference,” Taylor said. “Boardman’s really hot right now. I know Tyler Kurlik is doing really well; he’s hit three or four bombs. And if you get [Collin] Resetar on a good day, he’s just as tough as Weibling or [Anthony] Groner. So it’s a very tough conference, and Louisville is joining the conference next year, so it’s going to be even tougher.”

It remains to be seen when exactly those games or any of the other five will be played. While he acknowledged AAC teams typically keep Wednesdays open for rescheduled conference games, Howland’s pair of games vs. Canfield just narrowly escaped storms, and he would rather not have to scrap non-conference games against the likes of Cardinal Mooney, LaBrae, University School or Hoover to fit in the series vs. Boardman.

Regardless of when the Tigers play, Taylor is taking an optimistic view of the curveballs Mother Nature is throwing Howland’s way.

“Sometimes when you run into those situations, you have to look at it as an opportunity. We didn’t get to play today, but what do we need to work on? What do we need to get better at? Do we need to get better on moving runners over, hitting with our two-strike approach or bunting or doing what we need to do?” Taylor said. “It gives us a chance. You can’t always look at it as, ‘Ah shucks, we can’t play.’ It gives us an opportunity to get better and get ready for the next game.”