IRISH WIN BACK TO BACK STEEL VALLEY TITLES
By Matt Maher
YOUNGSTOWN, OH – Some may say Easter and others may say Christmas but I say Wednesday night was the holiest of nights as Ursuline hosted Cardinal Mooney for round 2 of the Youngstown Holy War! While the first meeting was very lopsided in favor of Ursuline, Mooney showed some great bouts of scoring and held a strong defense against the most dominant team in the Steel Valley Conference and only lost 43-36.
The first quarter started off slow as neither team could find a rhythm for the first two minutes of action but it would be Ursuline who would get on the score sheet first and from there the flood gates began to open as Ursuline outscored Mooney 13-5. Katie Pregibon and Sophia Diorio brought the 5 points to light for Mooney as Pregibon hit a 3 and Diorio found herself 2. Carly Casey and Kennedy Carpenter would each score 3 points with Casey finding a long 3 and Carpenter pushing in a 2 and going 1-for-2 from the stripe. Lily Scott would also find her first 2.
Mooney found a better response in the next frame as their defense held Ursuline to just 7 points and their offense found 8. Carpenter found the most impressive score for Ursuline with a beautiful drive to the hoop that resulted in the score plus 1. Lily Scott got herself another 2 more points and started to show everyone she would be one of the more consistent of the Fighting Irish. Pregibon found herself another phenomenal 3 as Ta’lecia Huff and Sam Rotunno both got on the board with a 2 pointer each.
Cardinal Mooney came out of halftime energized and ready and the score of 15-7 showed they turned the dial up to 11. Carpenter and Scott both found points from the free throw line where Carpenter went 1-for-2 and Scott hit 2-of-4. The free throw line would prove to be fortuitous for Mooney as well as they went 6-for-7 as a team. Delanie Olesh found 4 points with a field goal and 2-of-2 free throws drained while Pregibon found herself 4 more points as well with the exact same score line as Olesh. Sophia Diorio hit the stripe twice where she went 1-for-2 on her first trip then sank her third on an and-1 opportunity.
While The Cardinals showed they weren’t going to be pushed around in the third the Irish successfully unraveled all of Mooney’s work and scored 16 to cardinal Mooney’s 8. Ursuline’s defense from the first quarter showed up again and completely blocked out most of Mooney’s attempts to just get into the paint. Since Mooney couldn’t find any luck in the paint they looked towards Pregibon who found her third triple of the night and Sam Rotunno went 1-for-2 from the stripe while Sophia Diorio went 2-for-2. Ursuline was led by Kennedy Carpenter once again with an 8 point quarter including a 3 and 5-for-6 from the line while Brooke O’Palick found a 3 and went 2-for-2 from the line and Lily Scott scored 3 off of and-1.
Ursuline once again showed everyone why they’re the queens of the Steel Valley Conference after taking down their arch rivals in the second chapter of the Holy War and their second to last regular season game. Sophia Diorio finished the night with 9 points while Katie Pregibon led her team with an impressive 13 points. Lily Scott matched Diorio with 9 points of her own and Kennedy Carpenter led all scorers with 15 points. Cardinal Mooney (7-11, 2-3) will be back home on February 9th when they host New Castle (PA) at 3:30PM while Ursuline (11-10, 6-0) will travel north to Girard to take on the Indians on February 10th at 2:30PM.
Game Photos HERE: https://ysn.smugmug.com/2-7-g-bb-ursuline-mooney/2-7-g-bb-mooney-ursuline/104EOS1D
