Submitted photo / Magic Moments Photography The 2024 Lowellville football team.

LOWELLVILLE — Lowellville won 11 games each of the last two seasons, but things are a different this year.

“There’s a lot of unknown going into this year,” said Lowellville head football coach Andrew Mamula, who is entering his fifth season.

The “unknown” is the result of about a third of the team graduating, including more than half of a dozen two-way starters. That may discourage or frustrate some coaches, but not Mamula.

“It’s a little bit exciting,” Mamula said. “Every practice, we’re learning stuff.”

Mamula and his coaching staff have changed the way other programs around the Mahoning Valley look at the Rockets, and it’s changed how the Rockets look at themselves.

Mamula said after four seasons at the helm of Lowellville, the players believe they can beat anybody on any given Friday.

“They know what we can do down here,” Mamula said. “I think before I got here, it was one of those things where they didn’t know if you really could challenge for the league. When I took the job, it was, ‘Oh, we can’t compete with Springfield, they need to be in a new league.

“I think these kids have that belief now that we don’t need 40, 50 kids out to win a league championship and to compete at a high level. We can take our 25, 30 kids and we can play with anybody in our league.”

Despite the relatively large turnover from last season, Mamula is adamant that the standard remains the standard. Just because Michael Ballone and Santino Rivera-Ocasio, both of whom rushed for 1,000 yards and combined for nearly 50 touchdowns, graduated does not mean expectations will be lowered.

In fact, Mamula said success at Lowellville, he hopes, will begin to be measured not by the regular season, but by the “second season,” the playoffs.

“We’re not taking a step back. We want to win every game. You only get 10 of them. Every week, we’re going to prepare to win to the best chance that we can. And at the end of the year, we hope that we’re in contention for a league title. We want to make the playoffs. We want to win playoff games.”

The Rockets will be an inexperienced bunch in 2024, although it would be inaccurate to say they’re very young.

About a fourth of the roster are seniors, many of whom have waited to make their mark on Lowellville football.

“Most of our starters are going to be seniors and juniors. We probably will only start one or two sophomores, if that. It’s just they’re kids that don’t have any game experience. We’ve been blessed with a couple groups that have come through and won a lot of games. But the flip side of that is a lot of the times, you’re not playing with the younger kids because you don’t need to because kids are playing well.”

The Rockets certainly hope that a similar dilemma develops with this batch of upperclassmen.

OFFENSE

Lowellville’s offense is, as Mamula puts it, “explosive.” With Ballone at quarterback last season, the Rockets averaged 34.5 points per game and were nearly unstoppable on the ground. Lowellville rushed for more than 2,700 yards and averaged about 7 yards per carry.

For the first time in years, though, there won’t be a Ballone – Michael or his older brother Vinny – to lead the Rockets’ offense. Instead, they will turn to sophomore Ricky Willrich, who Mamula fully endorses.

“He’s the guy,” Mamula said of Willrich. “If you’re going to play quarterback in our system at Lowellville, you better be the guy. If you’re not competent, if you can’t be a leader, then you can’t play the spot. And he’s taken that on, but we already kind of knew that last year that he was capable of doing that.”

As a freshman last year, Willrich sat behind Michael Ballone for most of the time but performed well when called upon. Playing in six games, Willrich completed 11 of 14 passes for 213 yards and three touchdowns, fitting stats for an “explosive” offense.

“We’re not a grind-it-out team,” Mamula said. “We’re not going to try to wear you down. We’re gonna try to score points. … We are going to do whatever it takes to put points on the board.”

Joining Willrich on offense are the likes of tailback Geno Perry, wide receiver Josh Pazel and offensive lineman Nick Donatelli, who lack the gameday reps of their predecessors.

“We have an answer for almost every guy we lost. It’s just they don’t have that experience yet,” Mamula said. “Those kids (last year’s senior class) were really good. They got to play three, four years, whereas these kids are only going to get to play one, two years. And that makes a difference because those kids made their mistakes as sophomores, whereas these kids didn’t get that chance.”

Mamula said that he anticipates some early-season mistakes due to the inexperience, but the offense is going to try to keep the pressure on defenses as much as possible in hopes they can create mistakes for their opponent.

“Everything we do is with kind of that aggressive nature of put points on the board, put pressure on the other teams, they’re going to make mistakes,” Mamula said.

While the players have changed, expect the run to remain a key point of focus of the Rockets’ offensive.

Mamula said the offensive line and running backs are among the strongest, most veteran parts of his team, and Lowellville likely will take advantage of that fact.

“I think we’re gonna be able to throw the ball, but I think those guys up front and then Geno can really give us a physical element that we don’t always have down here,” Mamula said.

DEFENSE

As a Division VII team, depth is always a roadblock to success.

“We came to a 7-on-7 and we only have two safeties on our roster right now, and we put two safeties on the field,” Mamula said.

In addition to depth, Mamula said the current defensive personnel necessitates a change from years past.

“I don’t think we have the skill that we’ve had in the past, where we can just match up and play man and we got four or five dudes that can do it,” Mamula said. “So we’re gonna be aggressive. We’re gonna lean on some basics now. But as we get through the season, we’re going to just bring pressure, bring heat and just try to force mistakes.”

That aggression will lead to big plays for the other team at times. But it’s a worthy tradeoff to ensure the “pressure” never relents.

Due to the team’s size, many of the starters on the offensive side of the ball will be starting on defense as well, including Pazel and A.J. Boehlke, two returning defensive starters who are expected to be some of the most impactful and relied-upon leaders this season.

Linebacker Cody Nolfi will also take on a larger role within the Rockets’ defense in 2024.

“He’s a senior who didn’t play much last year, but he’s a kid that’s been working his butt off in the weight room. He’s a kid with a positive attitude that we’re looking to defensively this year,” Mamula said.

Donatelli and Anthony Vrabel will anchor the Lowellville defensive line.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Continuing a theme of the entire team, Lowellville will try to be aggressive on special teams, according to its head coach.

“We do our onside kicks. We like to try to steal possessions,” Mamula said. “Got to figure out a way to kick the ball, and without a soccer program – that’s what I would recommend, get a youth soccer program so I can find some kickers. But without a soccer program, it’s hard to find a reliable kicker. So that’s why we onside kick. That’s why we go for two, we go for fourth downs.”

Junior Nick LaRosa will try to provide some stability for the Rockets at kicker. Mamula said LaRosa has been going to kicking camps and will “get the first shot at it.” Willrich may punt some as well, Mamula said.

As for the return game, Pazel and various running backs will be back deep for the Rockets.

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