43
Ursuline squanders most of its lead, but survives to beat Cardinal Mooney
By Steve Wilaj
YOUNGSTOWN
Holding a nine-point lead with just over five minutes remaining, Ursuline couldn’t put Cardinal Mooney away on Wednesday.
Then again, it was a new task for the Fighting Irish.
“We have to be in those situations to warrant those situations, and that’s the first time we’ve been there all year,” Ursuline coach Sean Durkin said. “We didn’t handle it very well.”
But the Irish handled it just well enough, pulling out a 39-37 victory to split the season series with Mooney. Although the Cardinals outscored Ursuline 8-1 over the final 5:20 of the contest, Mooney came up short on Jaclyn Yankle’s missed jumper with a second remaining.
“It’s a good win,” Durkin said. “But we certainly made some mistakes and hopefully we don’t repeat them. We gave them too many opportunities that they shouldn’t have had.”
Two layups by Mooney’s Maggie Monahan and a free throw by Kelly Williams cut the Ursuline lead to 38-34 with two minutes remaining. A pair of Jami DiFabio free throws then trimmed the deficit to 38-36 with 1:23 left.
That’s when it got ugly.
Ursuline missed two free throws with 50 seconds remaining, Irish guard Makayla Berry drew a charge with 34 seconds left, Ursuline missed two more free throws with 24 seconds to go and Mooney missed a pair of potential game-tying foul shots with eight seconds remaining.
DiFabio then stole the Irish inbounds pass, was fouled and split a pair of free throws with six seconds left to make it 38-37.
Ursuline’s Janessa Rich split two free throws with 4.7 seconds to push the Irish lead back to two points before Mooney’s final miss.
“[We wanted it] so bad,” said Berry, who led the Irish (5-5) with 15 points. “We needed a redemption on this one. We fight. We’re all a team and we fight together.”
Mooney (5-8) — led by Monahan’s 12 points and Yankle’s nine — threw the first punch as it took a 17-14 halftime lead. But that lead diminished in the third quarter when the Cardinals were outscored 18-12.
“Our big focus was to come out and have a good start, because we were down 19-6 at home against them before we came back and won,” Mooney coach Erica Wilson said. “We had a decent first half. Then we acted like the game was already over. We didn’t come out with the same tenacity that they did.”
Durkin said the Irish — who also received 12 points from Simone Comer — picked up their defensive intensity in the second half.
“That kind of turned the momentum for us,” he said. “We’ve been happy with our growth defensively and I thought we did well again today. That will put us in positions to win more games.”
Ursuline forced 22 Mooney turnovers, although the Irish committed 19 themselves. All things considered, Wilson said the contest was a missed opportunity for Mooney.
“It was the silly mistakes that added up,” she said. “I’m hoping that this is that dagger in the heart that makes us start doing the little things better.”