Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. Warren JFK’s Michael Condoleon goes up for a basket as he’s defended by an opponent from Mogadore.

WARREN — At first, it seemed like Mogadore couldn’t miss.

The Wildcats made their first three shots, then their first five shots and finally their first nine shots before finally missing.

As a result, Warren JFK fell into an unaccustomed early double-digit hole. But, the Eagles steadied the ship, weathered the storm and clawed back into the game before going on to defeat Mogadore 73-67 on Friday night.

“We came out flat, and it was just a matter of time,” said head coach Mark Komlanc. “We just had to light a fire under them. They’ve been playing for so long that they know they came out flat and weren’t locked in and ready defensively. Once we were able to weather that storm, which our shooting allows us to do that, we were able to make some adjustments and take control of the game.”

At one point in the first quarter, Kennedy trailed by as much as 13 during Mogadore’s fiery shooting streak, but the Eagles eventually were able to cut that down to four by the end of the period.

JFK came all the way back and tied the game early in the second quarter on a Nick Ryan steal and dunk, then rattled off six straight points to finish off a 10-0 run to open the period.

“We’re a good team when we get into defensive half-court pressure and pressure the heck out of the ball,” said Kennedy guard Michael Condoleon, who finished with a game-high 25 points. “When we start doing that, we get steals, get out and run. I know Nick Ryan had about three dunks in that second quarter. If we can pressure them, we know we can get the ball off them. We just throw it up, we get out and run.”

Once the Eagles regained control of the game in the first half, they mostly kept the lead, but couldn’t quite put the score out of reach for the Wildcats.

Mogadore regressed to the mean after its hot shooting start, but still was able to score at a highly efficient clip, hitting 10 three-pointers, while also shooting 60.5 percent overall from the floor for the game.

The issue for the Wildcats were the turnovers. Like Ryan’s dunks in the second quarter, Kennedy was able to score a lot of its points off Mogadore’s giveaways.

“Our defense leads to our offense, we know that,” Komlanc said. “We just weren’t making the extra rotation defensively (early on) — the rest of the game, we did. I didn’t feel like we gave them any wide open looks at three. We were always closing out, which is what we want. They gave us a chance to rebound, get out and go and that was the only adjustment other than the press. We talked about being a little more aggressive when they were off the ball and on the ball harassing them because we were pretty good on the ball pressure.”

Still, despite the turnovers, Mogadore tied the game at 52 with a three from Dillon Pendergast early in the fourth quarter. Pendergast hit another on the next possession to give Mogadore the lead again, but Condoleon answered with a bucket on the other end for JFK.

Eventually, Kennedy’s ball pressure wore down the Wildcats and the Eagles were able to close things out in the fourth quarter by outscoring Mogadore by three during the period.

“The intensity of the game,” Condoleon said regarding what the key was for JFK closing things out down the stretch. “We want to play in big games and we want to play in close games. We want to thrive and when someone comes at us with a challenge, we want to show the area and show everyone else that we can handle that challenge.”

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com