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Mooney adds to district title run
By Pete Mollica
NILES
To the surprise of very few, the Cardinal Mooney High boys soccer team won the Division II district championship on Saturday.
For the 10th straight year, the Cardinals are heading to the Division II regional tournament after turning back a hard-fighting Niles High team 3-1 at Bo Rein Stadium.
The Cardinals head to regional play on Tuesday when they will meet Marlington at Brecksville High School at 7 p.m.
“I’m very pleased with tonight’s victory, but it was a hard fought battle,” Mooney head coach Larry Lencyk said. “Niles played extremely well against us and we felt fortunate to have come out with the win.”
The Cardinals, who have three regional titles (2002, 2004 and 2005) and one state championship (2002), had to come from behind to win the contest.
The Red Dragons (9-7-4) scored first when junior Justin Miller connected on a shot from right in front of the goal with 19:31 remaining in the first half.
Mooney came back to tie the contest some eight minutes later when junior Matt Ramsey scored off a corner kick from Clay Hicks with 11:11 left in the half. Hicks had all three assists for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals took the lead for keeps when senior Ryan Yavorsky, using some fancy footwork, drove right up the middle to score with 3:23 remaining in the half.
The Cardinals also had a first half goal by A.J. Oveerly nullified by an offsides penalty with seven minutes left.
Mooney built its lead to 3-1 with 14:30 remaining in the contest when Overly scored on a header.
Niles never gave up and had one goal nullified. Jordan Cline appeared to have hit a long free kick, but it was ruled that another Niles player had a hand on the ball before it went through.
The Red Dragons missed another big scoring opportunity when Shea MacMillan missed a one-on-one penalty kick from in front of the goal, the ball just going off to the right.
“What can I say about this team?” Niles head coach Josh MacMillan said. “We played four straight playoff games and we weren’t suppose to win any of them. These kids just have been tremendous and I’m so proud of the way the played tonight.
“Cardinal Mooney has won this tournament 10 straight years and they are a truly talented team,” MacMillan said. “I know we had a goal called back and missed an easy one, but they had one called back also.”
Lencyk said this Mooney team is different from the last few teams he had.
“This is still a very young team, but a talented one,” he added. “It’s hard to compare one team against another, but this is a very good team.”
Lencyk has been the head coach of the Cardinals for the past four seasons, but he spent seven years as a Mooney assistant before taking over as head coach.
The Cardinals outshot the Red Dragons 10-6.