By josh weir

Canton Repository

canton

What a precious commodity momentum is in high school football.

It slipped away from Canton McKinley on Saturday night, just like Cardinal Mooney’s Roosevelt Griffin, Justus Ellis-Moore and P.J. Quinn did so many times from Bulldogs tacklers.

Mooney overcame deficits of 18-0 and 24-21 to come back and beat McKinley, 28-24, at Fawcett Stadium in the season opener for both teams.

Without their kicker, who hadn’t been cleared to play, the Bulldogs failed on four two-point conversions, which turned out to be the difference in the game.

Griffin ran for 108 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries. Quinn totaled 74 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries. Ellis-Moore added 65 yards and a TD on 17 carries.

“Offensively we made some mistakes and got ourselves in some bad situations,” Mooney coach P.J. Fecko said of the first half. “We had a whole bunch of first-and-15s and things like that. So we did a good job second half of not making those mental mistakes.”

Finding itself suddenly down 21-18 and facing a third-and-1, McKinley handed the ball to Sa’Veon Holloway. He ran through one tackle to get first-down yardage. He spun out of another to get 6 points.

Holloway’s 27-yard touchdown put the Bulldogs up, 24-21, with 7:43 left.

But Mooney came right back. Never throwing a pass, the Cardinals marched 59 yards in 12 plays, eating up almost six minutes. Several times, the Bulldogs seemingly had the Cardinals stopped for short gains, only to have the ball-carrier break free for extra yards.

Ellis-Moore’s 3-yard TD run put Mooney on top, 28-24, with 1:39 left.

McKinley threw three straight incompletions before Bill Stana sacked Tyler Foster on fourth down to end McKinley’s last real chance.

Foster completed 6 of 9 passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. In the second half, he was just 2-of-12 passing for 23 yards and an interception.

“Defensively in the first half I thought we played well except for giving up big plays,” Fecko said. “We were able to fix that up and get some better communication.”

Malcolm Robinson caught four passes for 107 yards and a touchdown to lead McKinley’s receivers.

Mooney struggled to get much going offensively early. But late in the first half, trailing 18-0, Griffin popped open a run.

Griffin ran 24 yards on first-and-15 to set up the Cardinals at McKinley’s 25. Later, Quinn’s second-effort resulted in a 1-yard touchdown dive. Mooney overcame three penalties on the 12-play, 70-yard scoring drive to score with 19 seconds left.