Harding and the Cardinals are an even 5-5 against one another since January of 2019, but not for long. The Harding Raiders will be playing in front of their home fans against the Canfield Cardinals at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Keep an eye on the score for this one: both teams posted some lofty point totals in their previous games.
Last Tuesday, Harding was able to grind out a solid victory over the Spartans, taking the game 60-50. Given Harding's advantage in MaxPreps' Ohio basketball rankings (they are ranked 178th, while the Spartans are ranked 485th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Chaz Coleman continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 22 points along with six rebounds and five steals. He hasn't dropped below 18 points for three straight games. The team also got some help courtesy of Ny Coleman, who scored nine points along with eight rebounds and four steals.
Meanwhile, Canfield entered their tilt with the Eagles with two consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with three. Canfield came out on top against the Eagles by a score of 65-53 on Tuesday.
Harding has been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four games, which provided a nice bump to their 9-5 record this season. As for Canfield, they pushed their record up to 12-4 with that win, which was their third straight at home.
Harding came up short against the Cardinals in their previous meeting back in January, falling 63-58. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Canfield's Tony Russo, who scored 23 points. Now that Harding knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
