FAVORITES PREVAIL

By Pete Mollica

Irish hold off rally by Mooney

Ursuline’s big first-half lead almost didn’t hold up against the Cardinals.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mooney-Ursuline basketball game always seems to turn out to be a close battle.

Such was the case Friday night even after the Irish jumped out to a 14-2 first-quarter lead.

Mooney battled back with a tremendous second half effort, but Ursuline managed to hold the Cardinals off at the end to post a 62-57 win in a contest that did not count toward the Steel Valley Conference standings.

Ursuline (2-0) played as good a first half as could be played and enjoyed a 34-16 advantage.

But the Cardinals (2-2) opened the third quarter with a 12-2 run and closed to within four points, 40-36, with 3:27 left in the third quarter.

“It’s always a battle when we play them even as good as we played in the first half,” Ursuline coach Keith Gunther said. “They came out in the third quarter and made everything they threw up there and all of a sudden it was a real ball game.”

In that third quarter, the Cardinals outscored the Irish 24-12 including four-for-four from 3-point range. Three of those were by senior Randall Thomas.

“We knew that if we were going to get back in the game, it had to be quickly in the third quarter and we got hot early and really had them pressing to stay ahead,” Mooney coach Chris Kohl said.

Gunther said, “Give Mooney credit — they came out and did what they had to do in the third quarter.

“We’re still not in basketball shape as yet and we started to get tired in the second half, but we settled down in the fourth quarter, made some free throws and got back in control of the game.”

Four of Ursuline’s starters are football players who were still playing until Nov. 29.

“I told them that I knew they were tired, but this is the way that you get into shape for the rest of the season,” Gunther said. “It’s always a battle here, we came here and had an 18-1 lead once and lost the game.”

Junior Jamel Turner, who just announced that he will attend Ohio State University in 2010 to play football, was the early spark for the Irish.

Turner, who led the Irish with 19 points, scored the game’s first six points as Ursuline jumped out to an 11-0 lead. The Irish didn’t allow Mooney a basket until 35 seconds remained in the quarter and the Irish held a 14-2 lead.

Mooney missed it’s first seven shots of the contest before Eddie Reese scored.

“We wanted to penetrate and get the inside shots, but we just didn’t make anything early,” Kohl said.

After Mooney cut the Ursuline lead to 16-11 early in the second quarter, the Irish went on another 9-0 run to pull to a 25-11 advantage and led 34-16 at intermission.

Turner scored Ursuline’s first two points of the third quarter on free throws. Then the Cardinals took control running off 12 straight points. After Joe Stoops and Thomas hit back-to-back 3-pointers, they were within four at 40-36.

Mooney never got closer than five points the rest of the way as Dominique Cole scored eight straight points for the Irish.

Then Ursuline connected on five of 10 free throws down the stretch to put the game away.

Cole finished with 18 points and Turnage added 14. Turner finished with a game-high eight rebounds.

Stoops added 11 points and Ronnie Martino had 10 for the Cardinals, who finished 9-of-19 from 3-point range, but just 3-of-10 from the foul line.

mollica@vindy.com