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Mooney survives early onslaught to beat Ursuline
Photo
Ursuline’s Bobby Dulay leaps over Cardinal Mooney’s Drew Wollett as Wollett steals second during a game Thursday at Cene Park in Struthers. The Cardinals edged the Irish, 8-6.
Mooney survives early onslaught,
comes back to beat Ursuline
By Ryan Buck
STRUTHERS
A framed snapshot of a young Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini and the facility benefactor and namesake Bob Cene Sr. hangs inside Cene Park’s press box. How appropriate.
The ebbs and flows of Thursday’s main event resembled that of one of the former WBA lightweight champion’s bouts than the game on the field.
For every haymaker the Cardinal Mooney baseball team threw at Ursuline, the Irish responded right back and after falling to their rivals twice last season, the Cardinals were the ones left standing this time.
Starting pitcher Gino DiVincenzo withstood a five-run second inning by the Irish and helped his own cause in Mooney’s decisive fourth- inning rally in an 8-6 triumph.
“It’s a big win,” said DiVincenzo, a senior right-hander who also leads off for Mooney. “We’ve got a bunch of seniors, so we needed it. It’s the big one.”
The Cardinals, who boast nine seniors, delivered the first shot with two runs in the first inning off Ursuline starter Dion Felger.
In their next at-bat, it was Ursuline’s turn. Vito Petrillo’s bases-loaded single through the right side of the infield scored John Hintz from third. Drew Potesta then drew a walk from DiVincenzo to tie the game before Zach Patton came home on near double-play ball to give the Irish a 3-2 lead.
With two outs, Felger was his own best friend, sending a line drive to the left-center field fence that scored two runs and gave the Irish a 5-2 advantage.
“I think nerves play into it and it’s a typical Mooney-Ursuline game,” said Mooney coach Al Franceschelli. “(Ursuline’s) got a nice squad and they’re very talented.”
Noticeably stunned by the inning, DiVincenzo steadied himself and kept the Irish off the scoreboard in the third as he found balance.
“I was struggling to find the zone in the beginning and once I settled in, I put it on my teammates to drive in some runs,” DiVincenzo said.
Their rally would come an inning later when Ryan Megyesi tripled with one out and scored when Drew Wollett stole second. DiVincenzo’s single brought Wollett home and Drew Beck’s two-out single added two more.
“In the huddle before we went to bat, we said, ‘Shorten up and drive it to the right side (of the infield) and do our jobs,” DiVincenzo said. “That’s what we did. It’s a team game.”
The four-run inning and 6-5 lead was the haymaker Franceschelli was looking for.
“We’ve been hitting the ball well all year,” he said, “and I think (Felger), too, was running out of gas at that point.”
Ursuline coach Sean Durkin thought his team was close to escaping the flurry.
“Just a couple balls that were within the infield,” said Durkin, “and it’s not as though they were hitting lasers all over the yard and I thought we had some opportunities to get out of the inning. “
Harrison Wagner added a run for Mooney in the fifth and DiVincenzo escaped a jam in the bottom half of the inning before the Irish ran out of puncher’s chances.
Felger singled with two outs in the sixth, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on an error at second to cut the Irish deficit to one with an inning left ... and then they gave one right back.
Wagner tripled to lead off the seventh and was nearly caught hung-up between third and home when Megyesi grounded to third. He broke for home on the fielder’s choice throw to first and slid in safely for an insurmountable two-run Mooney lead.