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Ursuline’s fast start too much for Mooney
By Gary Housteau
YOUNGSTOWN
The Ursuline girls basketball team Irish sprinted out to a 13-1 lead, led 19-3 at the end of the first quarter and 30-13 at halftime on Wednesday night.
But the Irish had to hold off a second-half charge by Cardinal Mooney for a 62-51 victory over their parochial rival.
Senior Simone Comer led Ursuline (4-3) with 11 first-half points and finished with 20 and sophomore Dayshanette Harris added 19 points in the second and led the Irish with 27.
“For us it was a tale of two halves,” said second-year Ursuline head coach Vannessa Dickson. “The first half, that’s how we play basketball. We come out we play hard, we dictate the tempo, we play defense, we score in transition. The second half we just let up. We got sloppy, we made bad decisions, we made bad fouls, we were out of our game. But that’s what this rivalry is. You put Ursuline and Mooney together and that’s how it’s going to go every single time. In the second half they brought it to us and we didn’t respond until the end.”
For both teams, sloppy play peppered the contest between turnovers, missed shots and fouls. But Mooney more than held serve on the scoreboard in the second half as sophomore Conchetta Rinaldi scored 18 of her 19 points and Camden Hergenrother scored eight of her 10.
“It’s only our second game, we’ve been off for two-and-a-half weeks with scheduling and snow days,” said Mooney head coach Erica Wilson. “Obviously that first quarter, it was 19-3 and then we lost by 11, once we settled down we were OK and I think that’s our confidence booster.”
Youth is the strength and quite possibly the Achilles’ heel for Ursuline.
“We play four sophomores that start and two come off the bench, we have a lot of youth and there’s growing pains,” Dickson said. “But at the end of the day we’re not where we’re going to be in a month and hopefully by game 22 we’ll be where we need to be.”
But Comer is the glue that the Irish need with all this talented youth.
“She’s like our general on the floor,” Dickson said. “She’s our point guard, she’s our defensive kid, when we need a stop she’s usually the one that comes up with it. She’s our lone senior starter but she’s been a starter her whole four years of varsity basketball. She’s our glue, she kind of puts things together for us and gives us some good possessions and puts us in the right positions.”
Harris scored 11 fourth-quarter points as she took over the game late for Ursuline.
“Dayshanette is Dayshanette,” Dickson said. “She’s the type of kid that she has the ability to take over a game when needed, she’s a great player. But she’s just a sophomore so she’s still got some more growing to do but she’s a heck of a kid and a heck of a person as well.”
Mooney (1-1) couldn’t get any closer than eight points in the third quarter and nine points in the fourth.
“It’s always disappointing when you lose but to be honest they’re one of the better teams, I think, in the area,” Wilson said. “But I think we feel confident that we can give them a game next time.”
For the Irish, their second half struggle was a valuable learning experience.
“Today was a good environment to be in and we need to play in these close games and we got to get better at free throws and put games away,” Dickson said.