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Vivo, Gabriele power Boardman girls
Boardman holds off
Cardinal Mooney
to win rivalry game
YOUNGSTOWN
Boardman junior Jenna Vivo poured in a career-high 26 points and senior Lauren Gabriele grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds as the Spartans held off Cardinal Mooney for a 54-45 victory.
“It’s Boardman-Mooney. I don’t care what sport you’re playing, Boardman-Mooney is the rivalry,” said Boardman head coach Jeff Hammerton.
“I told the girls at halftime, we were up 13 (28-15), ‘If you don’t come out ready to go at the start they’ll cut it to single digits pretty quickly,’ and they did. Give Mooney a ton of credit, they never stopped fighting and they made us earn that victory.”
Mooney led 3-2 for the only time in the contest as Boardman took a 15-8 lead after one quarter and led 28-15, their biggest margin of the contest, at the intermission. Vivo scored 15 in the first half.
“That’s what they were giving us,” Hammerton said. “Last time we played them we only had three people score and our leading scorer was Lauren Gabriele in that game. So I figured they would pile it in a little bit and take away our big girl. So we decided to spread the floor out a little and let Jenna go one-on-one and create.”
Gabriele, who hit just one 3-pt goal in the game, was a terror on the glass this time around as Boardman out rebounded Mooney 29-21.
“She was an absolute beast on the boards,” Hammerton said. “We’ve been working with G to rebound and in the first half she already had double-digit rebounds and that’s what we need from her. When she rebounds like that, we’re very hard to beat.”
Vivo, who chipped in with six caroms, was elated with the victory.
“I don’t personally like to lose to rivals obviously and I told my team we all need to step up as one together and we did tonight and we won,” Vivo said. “So I’m very happy with my team.”
With six field goals and three free throws in the first half alone, Vivo was scoring at will before intermission.
“I noticed that their man wasn’t as packed in as most of the others and they figured it out towards the second half, but it was wide open so I just decided to take it,” Vivo said. “I just kept taking what they gave us.”
But it wasn’t quite as easy for Vivo or Boardman as a whole in the second half as the Cardinals cut it to four on a couple of occasions. Vivo scored seven points in the third and just four free throws in the fourth.
“I was getting worried but I knew we would step up somehow,” she said. “We made some big shots on the free throw line to seal the deal.”
It was too big of a mountain to climb in the second half for Mooney,which scored eight in the first quarter and seven in the second, but doubled that total in the second half. Carolyn Kay led Mooney with nine points and senior Taylor Martin paced the Cardinals with five boards.
“We just started out too slow, we can’t have quarters like that,” said Mooney head coach Erica Wilson. “We were down 13 and it came down to four points there with like a minute or so to go but we just can’t dig ourselves out of the hole.”
Sophomore Alicia Saxton added nine points for Boardman and she hit a few clutch free throws, after missing four straight, late in the game to help secure the win as Boardman improved to 12-9 on the campaign.
“We’ve won three in a row and we close out the season on Wednesday at Ursuline,” Hammerton said.
“I think we’re playing good basketball at the right time of the year and I’m really excited.”