Thomas, Armstrong lift Mooney over Boardman

By JOHN BASSETTI

sports@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

In a game of two different halves, Trell Thomas and Andrew Armstrong had 27 points apiece to lead Cardinal Mooney’s 75-60 win over Boardman on Friday night.

Boardman

(8-12) looked unstoppable in the first 16 minutes when the Spartans shot out to a 22-10 lead after one quarter before settling down for a 43-32 halftime lead. The fire then went out as Mooney outscored the homecourt team 18-1 during a stretch in the third quarter.

“Basically, coach [Brian Danilov] just told us to relax and play Mooney basketball,” said Armstrong, who made 13 of 14 foul shots. “I think they had eight 3s in the first half, so we had to focus on closing down on their shooters and make them put it [the ball] on the floor and drive,” said Armstrong, who is committed to Syracuse for football. “After that, we were getting stops on defense and we were patient on the offensive end, so, it was just a great all-around team win. I’m proud of my guys.”

Boardman’s John Ryan lit up the floor with three 3-point goals in the first half, when the Spartans made 8 of 13 from beyond the arc. In the second half, Boardman was just two of four from long range. After halftime, Boardman had single-digit point totals of nine and eight, in the third and fourth quarters, respectively.

Thomas had the same response when asked about Mooney’s third-quarter spurt.

“The coaches told us to close out more on the shooters and play harder,” said Thomas, who had 19 of his points in the third period. “We talked to pick it up as a team.”

Gannon Murray was Boardman’s big gun with 18 points, while Ryan finished with 14 and Coleman Stauffer 11.

While Mooney finished by sinking 19 of 22 free throws and was full-tilt after the half, Boardman coach Pat Birch said that the third quarter came down to a lack of defensive stops.

“When you give up 32 points in a quarter, you’re not going to beat very many teams,” Birch said. “It’s hard to explain. We came out very flat to start the quarter and, with an 11-point lead at home against one of your rival teams, we had a lot of reasons not to be flat. We challenged the kids to be tough tonight and to be the tougher team, but we weren’t the tougher team in the third quarter.”

Birch said that his players moved the ball a lot better and challenged Mooney in the first half.

“When we play well, those are the things we do — we move the basketball and we commit to one another, defensively, but, unfortunately, when we play bad, we get selfish at times and kinda do a lot on our own instead of trusting one another,” he said.

Mooney had a lopsided 40-19 advantage in rebounds with Armstrong grabbing 12 and Thomas nine. Murray was Boardman’s top rebounder with seven.

The win was Mooney’s third straight after suffering a loss to Ursuline. Prior to Friday’s game, Danilov said he was looking for more consistency out of his defense, better overall rebounding and a reduction in turnovers. The Cardinals have two more regular-season games: South Range and Brookfield before a Division II tournament opener on Feb. 26 against the Salem-/Struthers winner.

After a string of close losses in a mid-January period, Boardman entered Friday night’s game with three wins in four games. To close out the regular season, the Spartans entertain Salem tonight and Fitch on Feb. 19 before meeting Howland in a Division I tournament game at Boardman on Feb. 24.