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STATE AT STAKE: Mooney prepares for Big Red magic
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IF YOU GO
Div. III semifinal
Who: Mooney vs. Steubenville
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: Fawcett Stadium, Canton
Tonight’s winner will play for the Division III crown next week.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN — It was well past 7 on Monday night at the Cardinal Mooney practice field, where a chilly wind was blowing and a light rain was falling and the Cardinals’ first-team defense was trying to prepare for arguably the most complex offense in Ohio.
“We just got a little taste of how much they were going to throw at us and it is a headful of information there,” said senior safety Ray Vinopal, who will play Steubenville in the playoffs for the third straight year in tonight’s Division III state semifinal at Canton’s Fawcett Stadium. “We just have to keep learning and making sure we know our assignments and even study at home.
“We just have to be ready because that’s going to be a big part of how we play.”
Cardinal Mooney (13-0), the state’s top-ranked team in its division, lost to Big Red 28-16 last season in a Division IV regional semifinal. It was the first time since 2003 Mooney failed to advance to the state championship game and the first time in five meetings the Cardinals failed to beat Steubenville.
Tonight’s game, which will be televised live on SportsTime Ohio, pits one of the state’s best quarterbacks, Big Red senior Dwight Macon, against one of the state’s best defenses, which has yet to surrender more than 22 points to any team, despite playing one of Ohio’s toughest schedules.
Steubenville (12-1) averages more than 30 per game and runs an extremely diverse offense that runs anything from the stacked-I formation to a five wide receiver spread — on back-to-back plays.
Macon, a three-year starter, has completed 107 of 176 passes for 1,508 yards and 15 TDs. Five different receivers have at least 10 catches, led by Trey Wiggins with 35 for 607 yards and four TDs.
Macon is also the leading rusher with 773 yards on 128 attempts with nine TDs. Eleven players have carried at least 10 times.
“A lot of challenges,” Cardinals defensive coordinator Ron Stoops said. “I don’t know of anybody that runs so many different sets. And it’s one thing to run them, but the way they can execute everything is impressive.
“They have Mooney’s old stick-I and they just pound away and they come off unbelievable. And if they want to, they can get in no backs or one back and throw the ball around.”
The formations are nothing Mooney hasn’t seen before; it’s just that no other team runs them all in the same game.
“It’s not a gimmick,” Cardinals coach P.J. Fecko said. “They do a great job with it.
“In some capacity or another, we’ve seen everything they’ve done. They just do a very good job of pulling all that together and using all of it at once, which creates a lot of difficulty.”
Mooney’s offense, as is typical, is not as diverse. The Cardinals attempted just one pass in last week’s win over Mooney — QB Alex Zordich averages four attempts per game — and the offense is based more on imposing its will than on outsmarting opponents.
Senior Braylon Heard (1,400 yards, 19 TDs), a West Virginia recruit, is capable of scoring from anywhere, while Vinopal (500 yards) is strong, physical runner with big-play speed. Those two have teamed up on state championship 4x100-meter track relays the past two seasons.
Add in physical fullback Mark Brandenstein (200 yards rushing), scatbacks Karrington Griffin (550 yards) and Charlie Brown (300 yards) and a strong, elusive running threat in Zordich (400 yards) and can see why the Cardinals have been so hard to stop.
Two years ago against Steubenville, Tim Marlowe made his first start at quarterback for the injured Danny McCarthy and the Cardinals raced out to a 35-0 lead en route to a 35-20 win.
Last year, the turnover-prone Cardinals couldn’t stop Macon and senior running back Branko Busick in a 28-16 loss.
Macon will again pose the biggest threat for the Cards, with a combination physical ability (he can run and throw) and mental capacity that can give even a team as talented as Mooney fits.
“You can obviously do a lot of things when you have a guy like that and they do,” Stoops said. “Hopefully we’ll have some things for them to think about.”
scalzo@vindy.com
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