By Brandon Judeh

sports @vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

Before Friday night’s game against Cardinal Mooney the Buffalo (N.Y.) Canisius staff bragged about how easy their 3.5-hour trip to Austintown was. There was little traffic and barely any road construction.

Little did the Crusaders realize, they would run into a major roadblock against a stingy Cardinals defense.

Cardinal Mooney held Canisius to 212 yards on offense on its way to an impressive 9–7 victory.

The win didn’t come without some drama in the final minutes as the Crusaders turned a 72-yard interception return into a 3-yard touchdown pass and had a chance to win the game in the final seconds.

After a delay-of-game penalty moved Canisius back, a 51-yard field goal attempt fell inches short and Cardinal Mooney escaped with the win.

“Defensively, we played really well all night long,” Cardinals coach P.J. Fecko said. “We came up with some big stops throughout the game and luckily we were able to hold on there at the end.”

As spectacular as the Cardinal Mooney defense was, their special teams play was equally as impressive.

Kicker Zak Kennedy and punter Denver Martin helped the Cardinals (5-3) control field position and set their defense up for success.”

“Field position was huge for us tonight, whenever they called my number I was able to come out and get the job done,” said Martin, who had punts of 66 and 50 yards.

Martin also was a big contributor on defense and made a spectacular 30-yard catch in the third quarter when he tipped, bobbled and then caught the ball deep in Canisius territory.

“I went up for the ball behind the defender, I tipped it and saw the ball above me and I just stuck my arm out and luckily I was able to pull it in.”

Kennedy was the star of the night as he almost single-handedly carried the Cardinals to victory by kicking three field goals.

“I’ve been really working hard on my accuracy lately and it really paid off tonight,” Kennedy said. “I have to give all the credit to the offense and defense though, because they did a great job of getting me into field goal range.”

The junior started things off early in the second quarter when he nailed a 32-yard kick to give Cardinal Mooney a 3-0 lead.

Kennedy’s other field goals came from 27 and 20 yards.

Perhaps the biggest play of the night came with eight minutes left in the game and the Cardinals clinging to a nine-point lead.

Canisius (6-2) was facing fourth-and-1 on its own 44-yard line when Jordan Jones stuffed Qadree Ollison at the line of scrimmage to give Cardinal Mooney the ball back and an opportunity to burn more time off of the clock.

“That was a huge play, Ollison is a big running back, overall it was a great team effort, a lot of guys stepped up and made big plays tonight,” added Fecko.

Martin says that this win will go a long way in helping the team gain momentum before next week’s Holy War showdown with Ursuline.

“Us seniors are 0-3 against Ursuline, but I think this is our year,” Martin said.