Staff photo / Preston Byers Poland’s Carmine Tukalo (11) attempts a shot over Cardinal Mooney’s Kaden Reese during Wednesday’s Division V district semifinal in Poland.

POLAND — Points were hard to come by Wednesday night at Poland. But the fifth-seeded Bulldogs scored just enough in the Division IV, Northeast 4, district semifinal, defeating No. 18 Cardinal Mooney 40-32 in front of a raucous home crowd.

The Bulldogs led almost the entire game, and with consecutive Carmine Tukalo baskets and a few free throws late, secured a trip back to the district final.

“Just a hard-fought game,” Poland head coach Eric Fender said. “You got to give Mooney credit; they came in, they hung with us defensively. We didn’t shoot the ball well, especially early on in the first half, but we were able to just grind it out, and we made some big-time plays at the end.”

Poland, playing in front of a packed, loud and predictably favorable audience, got off to a quick start, largely thanks to Nick Nittoli. The junior standout scored the Bulldogs’ first seven points, leading his team to a 9-4 lead within the opening three minutes.

The final five minutes of the quarter were much different, though, and Poland scored just one more point the rest of the period, allowing Mooney, which still only had one field goal in the final 3:30, to pull back within two.

Neither offense performed much better in the second quarter, as the Bulldogs went three minutes without points after scoring the opening basket of the period. Meanwhile, the Cardinals’ only points until with 2:07 to go came at the free-throw line. The game went to halftime with Poland leading 18-15.

Much like the first quarter, the Bulldogs enjoyed a fast start to the second half. They scored seven straight to stretch out their lead to double digits until Dante Turner broke the Mooney cold spell. Later in the quarter, in the final minute, Turner got the deficit down to four, but Vito Komara quickly responded to put Poland ahead 30-24 entering the final quarter.

Bucking the trend, Mooney outpaced the Bulldogs early in the fourth to pull within two by the midway point of the quarter. However, closing the game the same way on a night in which neither team reliably made shots proved too difficult for the Cardinals.

While trailing 32-30, Mooney missed a pair of free throws that would have tied the game, shortly before also missing a would-be, go-ahead three and game-tying two.

Then, Tukalo, the Bulldogs’ senior guard who had been limited to just a point during the first 30 minutes, drove into the heart of the Cardinal defense and made a layup, putting Poland up 34-30. After a Mooney turnover, Tukalo again drove into the paint and made a basket at the rim to give his team a 36-30 lead with 1:18 remaining.

While Kaden Reese made a shot with 39 seconds left, the Cardinals, who scored only that pair of points in the final four minutes, did not string together any more buckets to pull off the season-saving comeback.

“In the last four minutes or so, they just made a few more plays than we did,” Mooney coach Carey Palermo said. “Seemed like we kinda had a lid on the bucket. Some shots that we were making in the last couple games — and they had a lot to do with that, Poland — but every time I felt like we were ready to string three or four buckets together, we missed some makeable buckets. But sometimes, that’s how it goes.”

Tukalo finished the night with six critical points, Nittoli had a team-high 13, and Komara and freshman Maddox Purins chipped in nine each. For the Cardinals, Turner led with 16 points, while Kingston Powell, Grayson Dubos, Gavin Sentner and Reese combined for the other 16.

Mooney, which played Wednesday without starting forward Ford Stacy due to an ankle injury, finished the season with a 12-12 record and shy of the district final, snapping its four-year streak of championship game appearances.

“It was a lot of ups and downs,” Palermo said of the season. “The kids aren’t gonna realize it. They’re never gonna understand, maybe until later in life. From where we were as a team and as a group — a month and a half ago, we lost five in a row, seven out of eight, something like that. Guys had to look in the mirror, guys had to take accountability. They had to grow up. A lot of teams would have folded, a lot of teams would’ve made excuses and quit on themselves and each other. These guys didn’t.”

Poland (18-6) will return to Cleveland Heights, where it lost in the district final to end the year last March. The Bulldogs will face No. 6 Fairview on Saturday at 7 p.m.