Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Cardinal Mooney quarterback Pat Guerrieri tries to avoid Harding pass rusher Emari Burgess Friday night at Warren’s Mollenkopf Stadium. Harding won, 27-10.

WARREN — Both football teams in Friday’s battle between Warren G. Harding and visiting Mooney were seeking feel-good wins heading into the third week of the regular season.

After all, both teams opened the season with losses.

Th Raiders left Mollenkopf Stadium with the boost after muscling their way past the Cardinals 27-10.

“We stressed how important this game was for us,” WGH coach Steve Arnold said. “We lost our opener and we needed to get things going before going to Massillon next week. For the most part, we controlled the game, but there’s still a lot left to work on.”

The Raiders worked on their opening play of the game since Wednesday, and they executed it perfectly.

After an initial first down, the Cardinals punted away and Harding took over at its 30-yard line.

Quarterback Elijah Taylor took the shot-gun snap and he had a lot of time to find speeded wideout Dom Foster on a post pattern. Foster hauled in the heave and raced the final 28 yards to complete the 70-yard scoring strike and electrify the home sidelines. The extra-point failed, but the Raiders led 6-0.

Foster caught three passes for 123 yards but dropped another potential long scoring pass.

Taylor finished 13-for-16 passing for 198 yards and two touchdowns, including a 13-yard strike to a diving Deaveion Burgess just inside the left-front pylon in the end zone that gave the Raiders a 13-0 lead early in the second quarter.

“That first play was called on Wednesday,” Arnold said. “We worked on it quite a bit Wednesday and Thursday. We were hoping to hit the big play right out of the gate and it worked to perfection.

“Dom’s got big-play capability, but needs to be more consistent. We want him to make more plays on a regular basis; make the little plays and do all the little things in addition to hitting the big play at times.”

The Cardinals have lost their first two games of a season for the first time since 2001 when they lost their first five and finished 1-9. Last week in the rain, Mooney fell to Steubenville 40-13 for just its third loss in 10 meetings with the Big Red. Early mistakes in the punting game cost them a week ago.

Against Harding, the big play early stunned the Cardinals but Mooney showed life late in the first half and Brian Philibin’s 28-yard field goal cut Harding’s lead to 13-3 at halftime.

The Cardinals forced a three-and-out to begin the second half, but fumbled a Harding punt and the Raiders’ Devin Boss recovered at Mooney’s 39. Six plays later, Eliza Smith scored on a 3-yard run to make it 20-3.

“The third-quarter fumble on that punt was really big coming off a three-and-out to start the second half,” Mooney coach Carl Pelini said. “Again this week, it was our mistakes. We were a little cleaner, but we got out-physicaled up front and that’s disappointing. You’re not going to wins games when you get out-physicaled and that’s what it came down to.”

Harding increased its lead to 27-3 when Smith capped an 11-play, 85-yard march with 10:29 left in the contest.

Smith rushed for 51 yards on 12 carries, with the bulk of the work coming in the second half.

“We made a concerted effort to run the football more effectively this week,” Arnold said. “That’s what we concentrated on in practices. Eliza gave us a big lift. He got his shoulder square and ran hard and ran well. We needed that to ignite our running game.”

The Cardinals used a 1-yard run from quarterback Pat Guerrieri to cap an 11-play, 71-yard drive with 5:47 left to account for the game’s final score.

“I saw a lot of improvement,” Pelini said. “Our execution on offense was much better and we were a little crisper. But losing Mike Pastella to injury in the first half didn’t help. There goes our fullback and he’s a good blocker for us. For the most part, they out-physicaled us up front and took away our running game. They knocked us off the ball on defense and you’re not going to win many ballgames if that happens on both sides of the ball.

“But our kids are battling. We’re going to keep getting better. It’s a work in progress. I’m just totally disappointed in the physicality of our guys. I thought we’d be more physical than we are.”

Arnold, too, said there was some disappointment with his team’s defense, which allowed 13 first downs.

“We knew their quarterback was tough, but we were a bit disappointed because he got some key runs on third downs to keep their offense on the field,” Arnold said. “In return, they kept our offense off the field longer and we didn’t get as many possessions as we had hoped to get.

“We didn’t feel they could stop us if we got going offensively, but we didn’t get many three-and-outs. They executed their game plan a bit and kept us off the field.”