By BOB ETTINGER

sports@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The Cardinal Mooney football team had a brief period of time in which it had momentum over Akron Hoban. The Knights’ ability to hit the home run turned the tide, however, and the Cardinals fell 42-13 at Stambaugh Stadium on Friday night.

The Cardinals (1-1) took a 7-0 lead after Darrion Fant returned an interception to the Hoban 7 and Jason Santisi carried it in from the 3 with 6:32 to play in the first quarter.

“They’re a team that has a lot of god folks with a lot of athleticism,” Mooney coach P.J. Fecko said. “They have some guys with big-play capability. That was something, going in against them, we wanted to eliminate. Obviously, they had a couple of big plays in the first half. We had the big play with the interception to get us down there at the seven. I thought, in the first half, we held them pretty well except for the big plays. We just weren’t able to make the big play on the offensive side to match it.”

The Knights (2-0) tied it, 7-7, on Tyris Dickerson’s five-yard run with 4:06 to play in the first. Dickerson had a 32-yard reception and Mason Tipton had one for 20 yards on the drive.

After a punt return to the Mooney 25, Hoban took the lead on another five-yard scoring run from Dickerson just seven seconds into the second period.

After a Mooney drive stalled on the Hoban 35, Shane Hamm dropped a 65-yard scoring strike into the hands of Mason Tipton for a 21-7 lead with 7:26 to play in the half. It remained that way into the break.

Hamm opened the second half with a 36-yard run in which he broke some tackles, eluded others, stumbled and righted himself only to gain several more yards. He finished the nine-play march with a two-yard plunge for a 28-7 Hoban advantage with 7:42 to play in the third.

Three Cardinal plays — including a bad snap — that totaled a loss of 10 yards and a punt later, Jordan Mick hit Caden Clark for a 33-yard score for a 35-7 Knights’ lead with 5:11 remaining in the period.

After another Mooney possession that resulted in a net gain of zero, Dom Moegerle took a slant 44 yards to Mooney 15 before Kobe Campbell scored from the three to make it 42-7 with 53 seconds left in the third.

“To be honest, we didn’t do anything right in the first half,” Hoban coach Tim Tyrrell said. “I wasn’t happy with the way we came out to start the game. We had a mental letdown after beating St. Ignatius last week. That’s my fault as the coach. I let it happen. We didn’t come out mentally ready to play. It won’t happen again. I was expressive, you could say, at halftime. In the second half, they were excited and ready to play.”

Mooney was held to minus-10 yards in the third quarter as the Knights netted 21 points.

“Obviously, we didn’t help ourselves out in the second half with the fumbled snaps to start the first two series,” Fecko said. “Their kicker was able to pin us deep — we started both drives on the 20. We fumbled the snaps and were second and 17 and second and 20. It’s hard to dig out of the hole in that instance.”

Santisi finally provided the Cardinals with a big play on the offensive side of the ball to set up a one-yard touchdown run from quarterback John Murphy.