Photo

Photo by: Nick Mays

Cardinal Mooney’s Macy Marlowe (4) drives to the hoop against Springfield defender Baylee Felger (5) during their basketball game Thursday at Mooney High School. The Cardinals downed the Tigers, 49-37, with Marlowe sparking the Cards’ second half with a coast-to-coast lay-up after an early steal in the Springfield paint.

Team

Cardinal Mooney

Record	Div.	Conf.
7/5	Div. IV	Independents

By Matthew Peaslee

mpeaslee@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

On the first day of December Jamie DiDomenico gave Mooney eight skillful points, six athletic steals, three helpful assists and its first win of the season.

The Cardinals jump-started the last month of the year and the first game of their season by knocking off Springfield 49-37 at home.

“It feels really good to be back out playing,” DiDomenico, a sophomore, said. “This year I feel a lot better. We started playing and I calmed down, so it’s a good start to the season.”

DiDomenico started as a freshman and played AAU ball and in the West Branch summer league. Making the jump to a new season was easy for her and Mooney coach Bill Ritter has full confidence in the promising point guard.

“She was out on her own last year,” Ritter said. “She was a lone freshman playing against some tougher kids and Jamie just did a tremendous job tonight. She did a great job of controlling the ball and controlling the game.”

The Cardinals got out to an early lead after winning the opening tip, but Springfield’s Brooke Schriber stole an inbound pass after Andrea Zubick’s first Tiger points of the night. The senior proceeded to complete an easy layup. That would be about it, though, as Mooney pulled away to a 17-9 lead after the first quarter. Schriber, Lexi Zubick and Baylee Felger led the losing effort with seven points each.

The home team limited Springfield (0-1) to just five second-quarter points as it instilled a high-pressure full court press. It messed with the Tigers’ tempo and the Cardinals created 25 turnovers over the course of the game.

“We just picked it up a few weeks ago,” DiDomenico said of the Cardinals’ defense. “We’re going to continue to work on it but it’s something that really helped us tonight.”

Ritter said it will indeed be put into play more as the season goes on partially because Mooney is a smaller, guard-laden team.

“The turnover margin was tremendous,” the second-year varsity coach said. “We could not control their physicalness, however we did control the ball. And, getting them out of their offensive rhythm was big.”

Macy Marlowe sparked the Cards’ second half with a coast-to-coast layup after an early steal in the Springfield paint. Christine Pelini had nine of her Cardinal leading 14 points in the second half. Mooney shot 10-of-13 from the free throw line as Springfield was just 12-of-23.

“We can shoot it well, we just didn’t get to the line enough,” Ritter said. “Something we stress is getting second chance points and we could try to draw more fouls from those.”

A 17-point push in the fourth quarter wasn’t enough to fuel a Tiger comeback. Most of those points came from the Springfield bench as it dropped 13 in the final frame. On her first career shot attempt, Amber Schneider sinked a 3-pointer from the top of the key.

Mooney’s Taylor Woytek and Brie Ozenghar contributed with eight and 10 points, respectively.