By BOB ETTINGER

sports@vindy.com

AKRON

The Cardinal Mooney football team controlled just about every facet of its contest against Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary at John Cistone Field on Friday night. The areas the Cardinals didn’t control were turnovers, momentum and the scoreboard and it resulted in a 27-21 loss to the Fighting Irish.

“Turnovers were obviously a major issue,” Mooney coach P.J. Fecko said. “You can’t turn the ball over against a team like St. Vincent. That’s something that’s tough to recover from, especially when one of them goes for a score.”

The Cardinals (1-3) lost their third straight in turning the ball over three times. Twice in the first half, they were marching and fumbled the ball away. The first of which put SVSM (4-0) up, 21-0, with 9:37 to play in the first half when Leonard Younger returned it 85 yards for a score.

“Leading up to that, we’re moving the ball,” Fecko said. “We ended up trying to overcome that the whole second half. We fell behind on the scoreboard and it was tough to overcome. We ran out of time.”

Antonio Page blocked a Fighting Irish field goal attempt with 8.5 seconds left in the first half and Nico Marchionda raced 66 yards to the end zone with time expired to get Mooney into the game. The Cardinals trailed, 21-7, at the break.

“We lost momentum when they blocked that kick right before the half,” SVSM coach Marcus Wattley said. “When we stopped them on downs (in the fourth quarter) and got the touchdown, we finally had the momentum back.”

Mooney’s Chris Gruber took that momentum and returned the kick to open the second half all the way to the SVSM 2, but it was called back following a penalty. After losing a second fumble, the Cardinals forced the Fighting Irish to turn the ball over on downs and promptly drove 74 yards in just under six minutes to get within a score, 21-14, with 2:48 remaining in the third period. Page outraced everyone to the corner to score from the 8.

SVSM forced a turnover on downs to take over possession on the Mooney 37 with 5:08 to play in the fourth. A 31-yard run by Terrance Keyes on third-and-19 moved the ball all the way to the 1. Keyes punched it in on the next play for a 27-14 lead with 2:33 remaining.

“It was a great call by my offensive coordinator,” Wattley said. “[Keyes] hit the hole. The line gave him a hole.”

“At that point, we were running out of time,” Fecko said. “It was important they didn’t get another score to keep it a one-score game. They went down and scored and there obviously wasn’t enough time to do anything after that.”

The Cardinals’ two-minute offense delivered, though, with a 73-yard march in 1:49 to get within six, 27-21, with under a minute to go as Page scored from the one.

SVSM recovered the onside kick and ran out the clock.

Keyes scored on a 1-yard run to put the Fighting Irish up, 7-0, with five minutes left in the first and Zachary Olson took a slant pass from Luke Lindsay 86 yards to paydirt for a 14-0 lead with 40 seconds left in the period.