UNDERWOOD ANSWERS FALCONS PRAYER TO STUN CANFIELD

Going into the last Friday night of hoops in January already, The Canfield Cardinals hosted The AAC rival in The Fitch Falcons on senior night.

The last time these two teams matched up was back on January 4th at Austintown. That night, Fitch was on the right side of a slim 60-59 victory against The Cards.

Austintown took the momentum for the last victory and rode it into Friday’s game. The Falcons jumped ahead to an early 14-5 lead after the first quarter.

Canfield struggled in the second quarter as well. With a number of shots, that The Cardinals usually have success with, were not falling.

The Cardinals posted a second consecutive 5 point quarter, allowing Fitch to take a 23-10 lead going into halftime.

However, Coach Muckleroy and The Cardinal Seniors were not accepting a lopsided loss on senior night.

Posting a 17-7 third quarter, Canfield made the halftime adjustments to tighten the deficit to just three going into the final eight minutes of the ballgame!

Like two heavyweights, The Cardinals and The Falcons exchanged critical shots in the fourth. With Devin Sherwood knocking down a pair of triples in crunch time, Eddie Russo and Harry Slaven responded to both Falcon threes with ones of their own.

Fitch had a two point lead in the final seconds of the fourth, when The Cards found senior Jake Grdic, who knocked down a turnaround jumper to tie the game up 41-41.

After a Falcon timeout, a bit over four seconds remained on the clock in a tie ballgame when Joe Roth was able to get it to Allen Underwood at half court.

The rest was history.

An icy half-court shot from Underwood both silenced and sent the gym into pure euphoria. The Falcons walked it off winners 44-41 over Canfield.

Canfield (7-8) will now look to regroup for another home conference matchup against Warren Harding (8-4) on Wednesday, February 2nd.

For The Falcons (5-10) they will continue their tough road trip with a matchup against The Campbell Red Devils (14-1) on Saturday, January 29th.

*Contributed by YSN’s Ty Bartell

Postgame interview with Brian Beaney: