Cardinals to try to erase bad taste

By JOE SCALZO

Vindicator sports staff

YOUNGSTOWN — It was well past 7 p.m. on Monday night at the Cardinal Mooney practice field, where a chilly wind was blowing and a light rain was falling and the Cardinals’ first-team defense was trying to prepare for arguably the most complex offense in Ohio.

“We just got a little taste of how much they were going to throw at us and it is a headfull of information there,” said senior safety Ray Vinopal, who will play Steubenville for the third straight year in tonight’s Division III state semifinal at Canton’s Fawcett Stadium. “We just have to keep learning and making sure we know our assignments and even study at home.

“We just have to be ready because that’s going to be a big part of how we play.”

Cardinal Mooney (13-0), the state’s top-ranked team in its division, lost to Big Red 28-16 last season in a Division IV regional semifinal. It was the first time since 2003 Mooney failed to advance to the state championship game and the first time in five meetings the Cardinals failed to beat Steubenville.

This year’s game, which will be televised live on SportsTime Ohio, pits one of the state’s best quarterbacks, Big Red senior Dwight Macon, against one of the state’s best defenses, which has yet to surrender more than 22 points to any team, despite playing one of Ohio’s toughest schedules.

Steubenville (12-1) has scored at least 30 points eight of its games and runs an extremely diverse offense that can run anything from the stacked-I formation to a five wide receiver spread — and do it on back-to-back plays.

“A lot of challenges,” said Cardinals defensive coordinator Ron Stoops. “I don’t know of anybody that runs so many different sets. And it’s one thing to run them, but the way they can execute everything is impressive.

“They have Mooney’s old stick-I and they just pound away and they come off unbelievable. And if they want to, they can get in no backs or one back and throw the ball around.”

The formations are nothing Mooney hasn’t seen before; it’s just that no other team runs them all in the same game.

“It’s not a gimmick,” said Cardinals coach P.J. Fecko. “They do a great job with it.

“In some capacity or another, we’ve seen everything they’ve done. They just do a very good job of pulling all that together and using all of it at once, which creates a lot of difficulty.”

Mooney’s offense, not surprisingly, is not so diverse. Although the Cardinals rotate a bevy of talented running backs, the offense is based more on execution and on imposing its will than on outsmarting opponents.

Senior Braylon Heard, a West Virginia recruit, is capable of scoring from anywhere, while Vinopal is strong, physical runner with big-play speed. Those two have teamed up on state championship 4x100-meter track relays the past two seasons.

Add in physical fullback Mark Brandenstein, scatbacks Karrington Griffin and Charlie Brown and a strong, elusive running threat in quarterback Alex Zordich and can see why the Cardinals have been so hard to stop.

Two years ago, even with Tim Marlowe making his first start at quarterback for the injured Danny McCarthy, the Cardinals raced out to a 35-0 lead en route to a 35-20 win in a Div. IV regional final.

Last year, the turnover-prone Cardinals couldn’t stop Macon and senior running back Branko Busick in a 28-16 loss.

Macon will again pose the biggest threat, with a combination physical ability (he can run and throw) and mental capacity that can give a team as talented as Mooney fits.

“You can obviously do a lot of things when you have a guy like that and they do,” said Stoops. “Hopefully we’ll have some things for them to think about.”

scalzo@vindy.com

SEE ALSO:Big red back on a roll after Week 9 stumble.