Cards clip Dogs in OT

By Pete Mollica

Cardinal Mooney knocked off previously unbeaten East Palestine, 53-51.

YOUNGSTOWN — East Palestine High head basketball coach Tom Bingham scheduled Cardinal Mooney because he felt the tougher competition would only help his team in the conference and come tournament time.

But when Tuesday’s game ended Mooney head coach Chris Kohl felt his Cardinals really benefitted from the matchup with the Bulldogs.

Senior Ronnie Martino hit a jump shot with two seconds remaining in overtime and gave Mooney (3-2) a 53-51 victory over the previously unbeaten Bulldogs (6-1).

“We knew they were a good team,” said Kohl. “I’ve been following their scores in the paper and I saw how they were winning and we expected to have a battle.”

“I think the difference for us tonight was defensively,” added Kohl. “We had been giving up over 60 points a game and we felt we needed to hold them to 50 points tonight, but I’ll take 51.

“I was pleased with our effort tonight and this win is only going to help us in close games down the road,” Kohl added. “We were kind of down after losing to Ursuline, but we’ve had a good week of practice and we got great help from our bench tonight.

Bingham was disappointed in the outcome, but still praised his team.

“We gave a tremendous effort tonight,” Bingham said. “This game is only going to help us down the road and we knew that and it’s the reason we scheduled it. The better competition you play the better you are going to be.”

“We came up with some clutch free throws tonight, two by Austin Cope to send the game to overtime and then another by Braxton Mascher that tied the game in the final seconds of overtime.”

“We knew that Martino was a great shooter and we were only hoping that he didn’t get an open shot at the end, but he did and he made it,” Bingham said.

The contest was tied at 41-41 early in the final quarter and then the Cardinals took the lead pulling to a 46-42 margin after two baskets by Chuck Gruber.

Mascher pulled the Bulldogs two within two points 46-44 with 14 seconds remaining and then they fouled Jeff Chahine with six seconds remaining. Chahine missed the front end of the one-on-one and Cope came up with the ball and while trying to get down court was fouled by Martino with 1.1 seconds left. Cope then made both free throws to tie the game and send it to overtime.

John Stoops put the Cardinals up quickly in overtime and then the Cardinals hit three of their next four foul shots to pull to a 51-47 led with just over two minutes left.

Brandon Keylor connected on a 3-point shot with 1:40 remaining to pull the Bulldogs to within one. Mascher was fouled with 55 seconds left and missed his first free throw, but made the second to tie the game and Mooney then let the clock run down before getting Martino open for the game winning shot with two seconds left. East Palestine’s final desperation shot just before the buzzer never got close.

The contest was tied seven times and there were nine lead changes. The Cardinals made just 20 of 55 attempts and were 4-of-15 from 3-point range, while the Bulldogs made 16 of 36 shots and were 6-of-16 from 3-point range. Mooney had 13 turnovers while the Bulldogs finished with 20.

Individually Martino led the Cardinals with 17 points, while Keylor finished with 12 for the Bulldogs, all on 3-point goals.