Canfield Rallies Past Shorthanded Hickory, 21-10

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Shane Lux | September 27, 2025

Canfield – Canfield scored 21 unansered points and knocked off an injury-depleted Hickory team 21-10 Friday night.

In an old-fashioned Ohio vs. Pennsylvania rivalry featuring two unbeaten teams at 5-0. It was Canfield that rattled off 21 second-half points, including 14 in the third quarter, to erase a 3-0 halftime deficit, thwarting a spirited performance by Hickory.

Hickory entered the game severely undermanned, as they were missing D1 recruits Kelvin Morrison and Jadon Phillips, along with starting linebacker Jekiah King and two-way lineman Michael Ristvey.

“The main thing is us staying together,” said Hickory head coach Bill Dungee. “We have to keep fighting through adversity. We’re taking adversity head-on; it’s unfortunate. But nobody’s going to feel sorry for us, and we’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves. We have three big league games coming up. We need to be ready for those and hopefully get healthy by the playoffs.”

Still, the Hornets pushed the Cardinals to the brink, right from the start. Faced with a 3rd-and-11 and their 19-yard line, Christian Dungee connected with Mearlon Peterson on a 41-yard completion.

Hickory ate up over six minutes of game clock and took a 3-0 lead when Callum Darraugh nailed a 37-yard field goal following an 11-play 60-yard drive.

After that initial drive, the Hornets didn’t move the football too much and gained only 137 yards the rest of the game.

“There were two or three run plays tonight that if Kelvin (Morrison) is in there, those are touchdowns,” Dungee said. “We had them blocked perfectly. Unfortunately, we didn’t hit it as well as we should have. But it is what it is.”

Both teams went on long possessions, using up the clock in the first half. Canfield had only two drives, both of which were ten plays long. The first ended on an interception by Jimarion Husband, and the second on a missed 36-yard field goal by Luke Goodrich.

Canfield got things going in the third quarter and moved the ball 60 yards in eight plays, scoring the game’s first touchdown on a 21-yard run by Matthew Campbell.

Three plays later, AJ Economous intercepted a Dungee pass at the Hornets’ 36-yard line, where Joey Pannunzio scored on a 5-yard run, seven plays later.

Pannunzio led the Cardinals, rushing for a game-high 102 yards on 17 carries.

Hickory continued to suffer from the injury bug as Trevor Borowicz left the game with an injury late in the second quarter and never returned. However, he did stay in uniform on the sidelines.

The loss of Borowicz meant Hickory was playing without five defensive starters in the second half.

“Defensively, it changes everything,” Bill Dungee said. “Now we’re scrambling because we already had a linebacker out, and Trevor was playing for him. Now you take Trevor out, and you have to move Dante (Evans) to a position he’s never played. Then we have a freshman in there, and you’re just not going to stop a good team like that. Once they saw that, all they did was line up to get Dante out of the box and run where he wasn’t. We were just running out of bodies at that point.”

“Trevor’s a big part of our offense, and we had penciled him in to play some running back tonight. So we lost another weapon. Trevor went from being our third weapon, behind Kelvin (Morrison) and Jadon (Phillips), to now being our number one. Then he goes down, and you’re down to the point where you’ve got no bullets left.”

The Cardinals then put the game away early in the fourth quarter when Pannunzio ran a punt back to the 7-yard line, where Sean Bolling scored on the next play with 10:54 to play, giving Canfield a 21-3 lead.

“Hickory is a great team, they fight hard,” Pannunzio said. “Honestly, no, we weren’t expecting them to come out that strong. Their offense was moving the ball; we couldn’t really stop them, as they were having long drives. We couldn’t get anything going in the first half. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it really. Our team doesn’t like to kick it up until halftime for some reason, but we made adjustments for sure. We just woke up.”

Hickory was able to score a touchdown in the closing minutes when Christian Dungee connected with Marzair Gardlock on a 32-yard touchdown pass.

Christian Dungee led the Hornets with 59 yards rushing on 16 carries, while completing 6-of-10 passes for 81 yards and a touchdown.

Hickory will look to bounce back next Friday night when they host Titusville. Canfield improves to 6-0 on the season.

Game Highlights:

Canfield 21 Hickory 10

Score by Quarters

Hickory – 3 0 0 7 – 10

Canfield – 0 0 14 7 – 21

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

H – Callum Darraugh 37 yd field goal, 5:27 – 11-60

Third Quarter

C – Matthew Campbell 21 yd run, (Luke Goodrich pat), 8:25 – 8-60

C – Joey Pannunzio 5 yd run, (Goodrich pat), 3:21 – 7-36

Fourth Quarter

C – Sean Bolling 7 yd run, (Goodrich pat), 10:54 – 1-7

H – Marzair Gardlock 32 yd pass from Christian Dungee, (Darraugh pat), 2:29 – 5-45

Individual Stats

Rushing: H – Christian Dungee 16-59, Logan Bromley 7-37, Bryson Applegarth 8-18, Trevor Borowicz 2-6, Peterson 1-0, Team 1-(-4). Totals: 35-116. C – Joey Pannunzio 17-102, Enzo Cocca 11-36, Bolling 4-19, Campbell 2-27, Adam Christy 1-3, Gabe Miller 3-8, DJ Porter 2-(-1), Team 1-0. Totals: 41-194.

Receiving: H – Mearlon Peterson 2-44, Gardlock 2-36, Dante Evans 2-1. C – Bryce Roberts 1-2, AJ Economous 1-7.

Passing: H – Dungee 6-for-10, 81 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. C – Cocca 2-for-3, 9 yards, 1 INT

Interceptions: H – Jimarion Husband. C – Economous

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