Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Pat Walker scored three times for Mooney while Frank Turocy scored four for Canfield.
By CHUCK HOUSTEAU
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CANFIELD -- In a possible prelude to a Division II playoff contest, the Cardinal Mooney High soccer team outdueled Canfield 6-5 Tuesday in a thrilling non-conference match.
"For any Americans who say this game isn't full of scoring, they missed this game tonight," Cardinal Mooney coach Lenny Krispinsky said. "It was one heck of a soccer game."
After the two teams battled to a 2-2 halftime score, Mooney (8-2) outscored Canfield 4-3 for the victory.
Mooney's Pat Walker scored two of his three goals in the final half as the Cardinals held off a furious rally by Canfield in the final 10 minutes.
When Walker's final goal on a breakaway found the back of the net with 9:58 remaining, it gave Mooney a 6-4 lead.
But Canfield (7-2-1), which continually fought from behind in the contest, would not go away.
"I commend our boys, they never gave up," Canfield coach Phil Simone said. "They gave 110 percent the whole game even though we were down the whole game."
Turocy scores four
Moments after Walker's goal, Canfield's Frank Turocy scored his fourth goal of the game with 8:10 remaining to cut the Mooney lead to 6-5.
Canfield then pressed the attack for the last eight minutes and had three chances for goals miss down the stretch.
"This is such a great rivalry -- the battle of the birds," Krispinsky said. "I have so much respect for [Canfield's] kids, their program and their coaching staff."
The backyard rivalry between the two Cardinal squads was further fueled by the fact that 10 of the players -- five on each team --started their careers playing together for the MVP U-10 club soccer team.
Mooney's Walker, Alex Simon, Mark Seddon, Mike Hernan and Christo Frangopolis and Canfield's Aaron Bestic, Brian Ricks, Scott Seiser, Scott Tallam and Matt Pietro have been teammates and opponents for many years.
Despite the high amount of goals, neither coach could find much fault with the defenses.
"There was a lot of firepower and weapons on both teams," Simone said. "It's tough to shut down so many weapons."
Early points
Mooney scored first on a Kiki Willis goal but Canfield came right back on Turocy's first goal at 11:15 of the first half.
Walker then scored his first goal at 9:40 and Turocy tied it with 1:58 left in the half off a corner kick from Julian Donofrio.
Walker and Simon scored goals for Mooney early in the second half, but Bestic and Turocy countered to again tie the score at 4-4 with 18:13 left.
Seddon gave Mooney its go ahead goal one minute later before the final 10 minutes of play solidified the final score.