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Armstrong’s return helps Mooney avenge Ursuline loss
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
With just over five minutes left in Friday’s game against Ursuline, as junior Andrew Armstrong prepared to finish off a three-point play that gave Cardinal Mooney the lead for good, the Cardinals’ student section started chanting, “Army Strong!”
“My nickname is Army,” he said, shrugging. “I guess that’s my little catchphrase.”
Over the last few weeks, he’s proven worthy of it.
A week before Christmas, Armstrong was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, a discovery that’s helped him feel better physically and mentally, but also means he has to check his blood sugar 10 times a day and take a shot of insulin before meals and bedtime. He’s also suffered a stress fracture in one foot this season and missed last week’s 21-point loss against Ursuline with a badly sprained ankle.
“Most kids would have just said [forget] it and moved on,” Cardinals coach Brian Danilov said.
Not Armstrong. In the biggest game of the season (so far), Armstrong bulled his way to 16 points, including nine in the fourth quarter, and grabbed six rebounds to help Mooney get revenge on visiting Ursuline 47-43.
“It was really hard to watch [last week’s loss to Ursuline],” said Armstrong, whose last win over the Irish came when he was playing on the freshman team two years ago. “It’s a great feeling right now. I’m still in shock.”
Armstrong got plenty of help from junior guard Antonio Bruno, who turned his ankle at the beginning of practice on Thursday but looked fine on Friday, pouring in 22 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter.
“You’re talking about a kid who gets up at 5:30 in the morning to practice dribbling before school,” Danilov said of Bruno. “He’s a hard-working kid. He loves it.”
The Cardinals took a 29-26 lead on Armstrong’s aforementioned and-one and they led by as many as seven, 35-28, with 3:30 left. But the Irish chipped away, cutting the deficit to two, 41-39, on Mark Hughes’ three-point play with 1:11 left.
Armstrong then scored on a putback off Trell Thomas’ how-did-that-not-go-in layup attempt with 45 seconds left. After an Irish miss, Bruno sank two free throws to make it a six-point game with 31.8 seconds left. Hughes and Bruno then exchanged free throws on each end, giving Mooney a 47-41 lead with 22.9 left.
Ursuline never again threatened.
“They raised their level [late in the third quarter] and we looked like the world was coming to the end, instead of riding it out and buckling down,” said Ursuline coach Keith Gunther, whose team led 22-18 with 2:20 left in the third before Mooney finished the quarter on an 8-0 run. “It’s a rival. You can never go, ‘We beat them by 20 last week.’ I tried to get that in their heads that last week’s game doesn’t matter, but with 16- and 17-year-olds, sometimes ...
“You can tell we thought we were going to walk out there and win.”
Dave Collins scored 17 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Irish (15-5), while Hughes scored 10 of his 12 points in the fourth quarter. Hughes, a Wright State recruit, also had seven assists but teammate Greg Parella, who scored 22 points in last week’s win, had just seven.
“We played like it was December instead of February,” Gunther said. “They know I’m unhappy but I can tell you this: I’ll beat up on them tonight. I’ll beat up on them tomorrow. Then you’ve got to let it go.”