Staff photo / Brian Yauger Cardinal Mooney’s Mick Hergenrother drives the ball as Warren G. Harding’s Duncan Moy defends during the Cardinals’ 42-40 loss to the Raiders. Hergenrother scored 14 points.

WARREN — Tuesday’s game between Warren G. Harding and Cardinal Mooney was the textbook definition of a “slugfest.” Physical, defensive and down to the final seconds, the Raiders were able to deliver the final punch and cap off a fourth quarter comeback to down Mooney 42-40.

Despite being on the wrong end of a close game, Cardinals coach Carey Palermo mentioned how the team’s defense was as good as it’s been all year. That being said, there’s still room for improvement, hoping the team toughens up as the season goes on.

“I’m going to sound crazy, but defensively we probably played better than we had in the last couple of games, but we got really, really careless with the basketball when it came time for winning time,” Palermo said. “I think we took the lead by five with maybe four minutes to go, and we just didn’t step on their throat. We didn’t finish. We didn’t make any winning plays down the stretch and the tougher team deserved to win and they won.

“We’re not a very tough basketball team right now. We’re still figuring out rotations. We still have guys when they make mistakes, when they come out of games, they hang their heads and they make excuses and stuff like that. It’s a work in progress. This is our sixth game. … I’m happy it’s December. We’re just going to stick to the process and keep getting better.”

Mooney held a 5-point lead with four minutes left in the fourth quarter, but was unable to hold onto it. Harding switched to a fierce press that swarmed the ball wherever it went. That 5-point lead quickly became a tie, then was broken by a Johnny Taylor layup with less than five seconds left.

The Cardinals lost the ball right after the inbound and had three chances to intercept a Harding inbound pass and get a scoring opportunity, but failed to do so as the Raiders took the contest to move to 2-3 on the season.

It takes a gutsy team to win a slugfest, which is exactly what Raiders coach Keelyn Franklin noted about his team.

“I thought we gutted it out,” he said. “It obviously was a low-scoring game. We knew it was going to come down to a possession or two, and we were going to have to get some stops against a team that really executes well. That was a concern, but we grinded it out.

“We got stops when we needed to and we had a big offensive possession down there when Johnny Taylor was able to sneak in for that layup. I’m so happy for the guys.”

In addition to Taylor’s game-winning bucket, sophomore Duncan Moy made a splash for the Raiders on offense. Moy scored 16 points and put in a ton of work over the offseason. Expect him to be a focal point of the Raider offense this season.

“He’s gotten stronger,” Franklin said about the sophomore’s offseason improvements. “He’s dedicated. He works on his game. He’s a basketball player. I think an offseason of dedication has built his confidence and he understands that he’s our guy and we need him to make plays, so he was able to step up tonight.”

The Cardinals (3-3) have a week’s worth of preparation for the Salem Holiday Classic, where their first contest is against the Quakers.

In that time, Palermo plans to work a lot on the team’s defensive skills.

“We beat Struthers, which was a big win on their floor,” he said. “That was a great win, but it might have been one of the worst things that happened to us because we didn’t defend very well that game and we got beat to a lot of 50/50 balls. Like tonight. I don’t think Harding shot the ball great, but they always seemed to come up with a loose ball and offensive rebound. Whenever they needed to get a stop, they got a stop. Whenever we had a chance to put them away, we always seem to kind of throw it away.”

Harding hits the road down to the Ohio-West Virginia border to take on the East Liverpool Potters on Friday.

The Potters will be a test for Harding, boasting a notable size advantage. It’s up to the Raiders to be able to cut through the defense of East Liverpool which has four players listed at 6-foot-4 or taller on its roster.

“They’ve got two 6-foot-6 kids and they’ve played a pretty good schedule,” Franklin said. “They’re a solid team, they’re going to be a challenge. We’ll enjoy this one tonight, then we’ll get working on scouting tomorrow and get ready for the Potters on Friday.”