Steel Valley rally lifts Cards Senior passed 1,000 career points

By JOE SCALZO

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — Soon after last Saturday’s loss to Kennedy Catholic, the Mooney boys basketball coaches approached senior forward L.J. Sutton with the news that he was just five points away from 1,000 for his career.

It’s the sort of news that sounds good at first, then you realize you don’t play again until Friday and it’s at home against your rival.

Suddenly, it’s hard to think about anything else.

“All week long, I’ve been thinking about it,” said Sutton. “I just wanted to get it out of the way.”

Friday finally arrived and Sutton, like his teammates, forced some early shots and looked anxious through the first eight minutes. Sutton missed his first three shots, scored one point in the first quarter and watched Ursuline roll up a 16-3 advantage early in the opening seconds of the second quarter.

“It wasn’t a very good start,” Cardinals coach Steve Leslie said.

At that point, no one in the gym could have known one of the best Mooney-Ursuline basketball games in history was about to break out.

Then something good happened for the Cardinals. Mooney guards Tim Marlowe and Donald D’Alesio hit back-to-back 3s, Marlowe made a bucket and the Cardinals gained a little confidence.

They never lost it, rallying for a 59-55 Steel Valley Conference victory despite a career game from Ursuline’s lightning-quick senior point guard Nick McCartney.

“We had a chance to bury them in the second quarter,” said Irish coach Keith Gunther. “We didn’t. We let them get some confidence.”

The teams battled back and forth through the final three quarters, but the Irish seemed to gain control with less than two minutes left. McCartney hit two free throws to cap an 8-0 run that gave Ursuline a 53-50 lead with 1:39 left. Then the Cardinals scored five straight — on two free throws by Sutton and a huge 3-pointer by Ronnie Martino — before McCartney drew a foul and made both free throws to tie the game at 55 with 22.9 seconds left.

Mooney called timeout, drew up a play that featured Martino driving and dishing to an open Mike Gemma, who swished a 10-footer on the baseline with 2.5 seconds left. Ursuline, forced to go the length of the court, couldn’t inbound the ball cleanly and Gemma hit two free throws with a second left to seal it.

“It feels really good for me, especially since this is the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve beat Ursuline twice in the same year,” said Sutton, who passed 1,000 points on a jumper in the closing seconds of the second quarter. “This is the type of game you want to play in. This is every kid’s dream.”

Gemma led the Cardinals (7-7, 3-0) with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Sutton and Martino each had 12 and Marlowe had 11. McCartney scored 32 points — including 12 of Ursuline’s 14 in the fourth quarter — and added five rebounds for the Irish (9-7, 1-2).

“He’s one of the best guards we’ve seen in the past three or four years,” Leslie said of McCartney. “He’s really tough to defend.”

Dominique Cole added 10 points and nine rebounds for Ursuline.

“Our game plan was to come in and defend the heck out of them and not let them get off shots,” said Gunther. “We did a wonderful job of that in the first quarter.

“Then we decided to go the opposite way. ... Defense has always been the key for us. If we don’t defend consistently and rebound consistently, we’re not going to win games.”

scalzo@vindy.com