Staff photo / Brad Emerine Cardinal Mooney’s Cole Litman (5) fires a pitch in Tuesday’s Division III district semifinal at Cene Park in Struthers. The Cardinals whipped Garfield, 12-1.

STRUTHERS — Cole Litman was outstanding on the mound in Cardinal Mooney’s Division III district semifinal against Garfield at Bob Cene Park on Monday.

The Mooney junior located fastballs and breezed through the G-Men batters with ease, as he took a no-hitter into the fifth before allowing two hits in the Cardinals’ 12-1 win in five innings.

“He really had his fastball pumping out there and was just overmatching their hitters,” Mooney coach Al Franceschelli said. “He was in command from the start. Those are the fun games, when you’ve got things rolling.”

Seventh-seeded Mooney (17-8) rolled into the district final, where it faces fourth-seeded Berkshire (17-11) at 7:30 Wednesday at Cene Park.

Litman struck out seven batters and rarely allowed good contact when the third-seeded G-Men put the ball in play.

“After the first inning or so, I really felt like they couldn’t hit my fastball,” Litman said. “At that point, I was trying to locate it and make sure I didn’t just throw it down the middle on every pitch. I did work in some breaking pitches to keep them honest, but the fastball felt really good today.”

Still, the game was tied at 1 through two innings.

Garfield (16-11) got a leadoff walk from Shawn Barber in the bottom of the second.

After a sacrifice and a nice diving catch from center fielder Jordan Sheehan, a slow roller ended up as an error by shortstop Ethan Shaw. Pearce Fedor then hit a grounder up the middle that deflected off Litman’s glove and Fedor beat the throw to first base by second baseman James Campbell to tie the score.

The Cardinals had taken a 1-0 lead when Litman’s groundout scored Matt Womer in the top of the second.

Mooney put the offense together in the third inning, as Sheehan and Shaw walked, Womer reached on an error and Mickey Valesquez ripped a two-run single to right-center field to make it 4-1.

The Cardinals scored four times in the fourth and four times in the fifth.

Logan Boyd had a two-run triple in the fourth and Shaw had a bases-loaded triple in the fifth.

Velasquez and Hyrb both had two of Mooney’s eight hits. Shaw drove in three runs, with Boyd, Valesquez and Womer all supplying two RBIs.