Mooney made a statement with a convincing 44-7 victory over Conneaut on a gorgeous autumn evening at Stambaugh Stadium.

It’s the program’s first playoff win since beating Poland 13-7 in 2017.

“Started out a little sloppy with the penalties and a couple turnovers,” said first-year coach Carl Pelini. “But I challenged them at halftime to just take care of ourselves and come out and play for pride in the second half and play clean football.

“Our first two drives, we had big plays and we drove right down there and we stopped ourselves with penalties. I keep telling our guys the same thing, ‘If we don’t stop ourselves, we’re a pretty good offensive football team,’ and our defense played really well tonight.”

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Cardinal Mooney senior Mike Pastella takes a fumble to the end zone Friday night in the second quarter of the Cardinals’ 44-7 playoff win over Conneuat at Youngstown State’s Stambaugh Stadium.

After a slow first quarter where Mooney had a fumble and a blocked field goal attempt, the Cardinals found the end zone for the first time when senior AJ Pecchia took a play 53-yards to house.

With 4:26 left before halftime, senior Pat Guerrieri found sophomore Ty Reali near the sideline for 10-yards to make it a two-score game.

Moments later, Conneaut QB Jake Slayton lost control of the ball and Mooney senior Mike Pastella scooped up the pigskin and found paydirt to make it 20-0.

The senior linebacker has been playing with his left arm in a cast after breaking his hand earlier in the season.

Playing with a cast that covers the hand and wrist requires adjustments.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Mooney junior Zy’ere Rogers blasts through the Conneaut defense during the second quarter. He rushed for 202 yards in the first half for the Cardinals.

“Oh yeah, it’s different, you usually can grab with your other hand but it’s hard,” Pastella said. “You just have to grab it with your good hand. It felt great, first touchdown of the year, it felt great to score on defense, get a big one for the team.”

The Spartans broke the shutout when Kiefer Mandagelo took a Slayton pass for 35-yards and the touchdown to make it 20-7 going into halftime.

Mooney punched back with a 7-yard touchdown run from junior Davontae Miller to push their lead back up to 20. Senior Brian Philibin would hit a 29-yard field goal with 5:00 left in the third to make it 30-7.

After amassing 201 yards on the ground in the first half, junior Zy’ere Rogers blasted 18-yards for a touchdown to push the lead to 30 and start the running clock.

“I did good, some bad things, but I came in there and fixed the bad things that I did and just turned it into a positive,” said Rogers. “First half I didn’t get in there, but made big runs, so it felt good in the second half to get in there.”

The junior running back feels that his team is getting stronger as the season progresses.

“All of us are improving,” he said. “Our chemistry is coming back, playing good as a team and everybody is just helping each other out off the field and on the field.”

Mooney would score one more time when Matt Womer ran it in from 2-yards out late in the fourth quarter to cap off the rout.

Rogers ended with 241 yards on 22 carries, and Pelini is happy with his running back core.

“Zy’ere and Davontae both, they’re both really good running backs, a great one-two punch,” he said. “Zy’ere’s speed and Davontae’s physicality, they’re both really good backs.

“Again, we just got to hold onto the ball and don’t turn the ball over and we’re hard to stop.”

Guerrieri’s final line was 10-15 passing for 101 yards and a touchdown. Pecchia led the Cardinals with 44-yards receiving.

Mooney ran 57 plays on offense for 528 yards, and held the Spartans (2-5) to just 80 yards on 34 plays. It’s the second least amount of points that the Cardinals have given up this season, behind their shutout of East.

Pastella feels that his team is peaking at the right time.

“We’re definitely playing our best ball right now,” he said.

The Cardinals (2-5) advance to the second round of the OHSAA Division V Region 17 bracket with a trip to third-seeded Garrettsville Garfield (6-0) on the docket for next Saturday.

Pelini sees that improvement can be made, but is excited to face the G-Men next week.

“For us, we just got to keep getting better,” Pelini said. “Get better everyday and we’ll have a good opponent next week in Garfield and we got to prepare well.

“We can’t come out slow like we did today, we got to come out and play our best football from start to finish if we want a chance.”