Mooney runs past Irish

The Cardinals doused Ursuline’s

comebacks to roll to their 12th win.

By JOHN KOVACH

Vindicator sports staff

YOUNGSTOWN — The Cardinal Mooney High basketball team made it a 2-0 regular-season sweep over arch-rival Ursuline Friday night.

Mooney started and finished strong while it managed to turn back several Ursuline comeback overtures, as the Cardinals capitalized on a fast-break offense to cruise past the poor-shooting Irish, 61-39, at the Mooney gym.

“Our transition game turned it around when they got close,” said Coach Chris Kohl of Mooney (12-4), which got timely baskets from John Stoops and Chuck Gruber to help the Cardinals pull away from a 31-23 lead in the third quarter, and a 46-36 advantage in the final period.

“Dan and Ed Reese were the two guards who led the fast break. [Jeff] Chahine also was pushing the ball.”

Stoops and Danny Reese each finished with 13 points to pace Mooney, which enjoyed identical 17-4 scoring advantages in the first and last quarters. Gruber added eight points while Chahine had six with seven rebounds.

“We dominated a bigger team. We have the athletes like the Stoops brothers [John and Joe],” said Kohl. And, “We did a nice job finding the open guy. We were getting the ball inside.”

Coach Keith Gunther of Ursuline (5-11) said his team was unable to sustain its comebacks because of missed shots, while Mooney got its fast break going to score points.

The Irish made only 13-for-41 from the field while Mooney was 21-for-53.

“After we closed the gap, we didn’t buckle down and play smart and we took bad shots and they made their shots. They beat us on the transition,” said Gunther.

“They got their fast break going and were leaking players [down the court] and we never knew which ones they would leak and they were coming [down] from all sides.”

DeVonte Jenkins had 12 points and 10 rebounds to lead Ursuline, while Craig Washington added eight points.

“They made runs. They beat us down on the transition. We didn’t play smart on offense. We didn’t take good shots,” said Gunther, whose Irish failed to produce a comeback leader in the game.

“In a game like this, you have to have players stepping up. They had players who were stepping up and taking control. We didn’t have anyone stepping up,” said Gunther.

Mooney utilized a balanced offensive attack right at the outset and broke out to a 24-4 lead early in the second quarter, before Ursuline staged its first comeback behind Jenkins, Washington and Dakota Trosky.

The Irish pulled to within 31-16 at the half and then reeled off a 7-0 scoring run to start the third period to draw within 31-23 early in the third period.

But John Stoops made backto-back goals to douse the Ursuline comeback.

And when the Irish battled back to pull within 35-27, John Stoops struck again and Gruber added two goals to lift the Cardinals ahead by 42-30, and they carried a 44-35 lead into the final quarter.

There, Mooney sped away with a 13-1 scoring run for a 57-36 lead, limiting the Irish to only four points during that span.

“I thought we were dead in the fourth quarter,” said Gunther.

kovach@vindy.com