Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Cardinal Mooney’s Talecia Huff puts up a shot in the lane over Chaney’s Semiyah Howell on Thursday. Huff had eight points in the Cardinals’ 54-19 victory.

YOUNGSTOWN — Chaney got the best of Cardinal Mooney earlier this season when the two teams faced off the first time around. The Cardinals weren’t going to let that happen a second time.

Mooney earned its revenge against the Cowgirls on Thursday, suffocating Chaney defensively for a 54-19 victory.

“The girls told me after (the first game) that they felt disrespected, and this was personal for all of them,” Mooney head coach Dom Diorio said. “A lot of these girls know (each other), so this is one that we’ve been looking for and that we definitely wanted. I told the girls before the game, let’s go out and send a message in this first half. Then at halftime, I told them, ‘Let’s go make a statement now,’ and they did.”

Points were hard to come by for both teams, particularly in the first half. Both teams also struggled with turnovers.

But the difference was, Mooney was able to get its shots to start falling. The Cardinals led by 10 at the end of the first quarter, and by halftime, were keeping Chaney at arm’s length with a 12-point lead.

“The biggest thing I keep telling everybody is we converted our uncontested, open shots,” Diorio said. “In the first game, we didn’t. … (The first game), there was some bickering back and forth, and I think we got caught up in it and got out of our game and played more of their game. That was our focus coming into this game was to play our game, be more disciplined, be smarter and be the more under control team. I think it made a difference in our conversions and we converted a lot of our open shots.”

Chaney freshman phenom Alyssa Brown has been on a tear this season, averaging 22.1 points per game, and scored 23 in the Cowgirls’ win over the Cardinals on Dec. 9.

The Cardinals were ready for her this time around — limiting Brown to just six points on 2-of-16 shooting.

Diorio said Mooney mixed up a variety of defensive looks to keep Brown off balanced. The Cardinals played man-to-man a significant portion of the game, yet disguised it to look like they would trap the ball handler at times, but then during certain possessions they would trap the ball to try to force a turnover.

“We were just trying to slow her down and give her something to think about,” Diorio said. “I planned on doing some other things, but it was working so well that we just stuck with it. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The girls, credit to them, they executed everything I told them to do and they did it perfectly.”

Mooney’s offense really started clicking in the second half, in large part due to Sophia Diorio, who led the Cardinals with 23 points. Samantha Rotunno finished with 14 for Mooney, while Talecia Huff chipped in eight.

Sophia corralled Mooney’s offense, while also getting to the free-throw line and converting at the charity stripe — finishing 8-for-9 at the line.

“We were just playing as a team,” Sophia said. “My teammates were able to look for me when I was making cuts and I was able to do the same for them. A lot of high pressure in our press was working, and we were able to make those layups and that was a big difference.”

But as the Cardinals started to pull away in the second half, the physicality and chippiness of the game picked up on both sides. There were hard fouls and multiple technicals were called in the second half.

“It was a very physical game, but the foul count was very lopsided,” Chaney head coach Dwight Berry said. “That still has nothing to do with how we played, but you saw how physical that game was. We’ll bounce back, we’ll get it right and we’ll get ready for Struthers on Saturday. Give Mooney credit — they played hard and they wanted to win more than we did. I give their coach and that team a lot of credit. They came and did what they were supposed to do on their own court.”

As the Cowgirls head to Struthers on Saturday at noon, Mooney won’t play again till Tuesday, when it hosts Farrell (Pa.) at 5:30 p.m.

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com