GIRLS BASKETBALL Boardman beats Mooney

Jessica Moore scored 26 points to lead the Spartans to their sixth win in seven games.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Knowing his team had a distinct height advantage over Cardinal Mooney, Boardman High girls basketball coach Ron Moschella told his team to just put the ball on the rim and crash the boards.
The Spartans did just that in a convincing 52-39 victory at Mooney High.
Of Boardman's three 6-footers, the Cardinals were able to hold two of them, April Melquist and Emily Hays, to two points each. But 6-foot-1 center Jessica Moore poured in 26 points -- many of them off rebounds and put-backs -- and grabbed "at least 14 or 15 rebounds," according to Moschella.
"I love being on the boards, that's the best part of the game for me," Moore said. "I knew we had to get our rebounds, so I just went for it."
Spartans improve to 6-1
Boardman (6-1) also got solid guard play from Liz Yazbek, who scored 10 points but contributed the most on defense. In the first half, she was largely responsible for shutting down Mooney's Amber Bodrick, who entered the game averaging 20 points per game.
"I thought we deserved to win," Yazbek said. "We played really hard. We had some turnovers, but we pulled it through."
Mooney (4-3), though overmatched, was able to keep pace with Boardman for much of the game, with one key exception. The Spartans used a 9-0 run in the third quarter to turn a four-point lead to a 40-27 advantage, effectively taking the Cardinals out of the contest.
"I think we played well for the majority of the game, but we had spurts where we just didn't execute well offensively and defensively," said Mooney coach Jack Bermann. "You can't do that against a good team like Boardman because they'll make their runs."
The Cardinals began the game by jumping out to a 4-0 lead behind two jumpers from senior guard Gina Brunetti. They were able to hold the lead until 3:45 remained in the quarter, when Boardman's Melquist hit her only bucket of the game to tie the game at four.
The Spartans would never trail again, though they only led by two at the end of the first quarter.
Second period was sloppy
In the second quarter, a combination of good defense and sloppy ball-handling by both teams made for a low-scoring affair. At one point, the Spartans were called for traveling violations in three straight possessions, but Mooney could not capitalize.
Frustrated by being shut out in the first eight minutes, Mooney's Bodrick tried to create scoring opportunities for herself, resulting in a few off-balance shots.
"They did a nice job of shutting her down, defensively," Bermann said. "She forced it a little bit, but at the same time it was their defense.
"It was just one of those things, some days you have good games and some days you don't."
Bodrick made the first bucket of the second quarter and sank two free throws with under a minute left, but those four points were all she could muster as the Cardinals found themselves down 24-18 at halftime.
Spartans take control
To begin the third quarter, Boardman played trap defense and set up a match-up zone in order to contain Mooney's shooters. Brunetti, after scoring eight points in the first half, would not score again, while Bodrick scraped together a team-leading 14 points.
The Spartans' offense also began to click, led by Moore and Yazbek, who together accounted for all but two of the team's 18 points in the third quarter.
Moore scored 12 points that period, while Boardman senior Brittany Sirak, in her first game coming off ACL surgery, scored her only basket of the game (she made two free throws in the first half and finished with four points).
"[Sirak] is our field general," Moschella said. "She's the heart of our team, and it was good to have our heart back."