Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Austintown Fitch receiver Brady Evans (11) breaks an attempted tackle by Boardman’s Vince Butto on Friday night at Spartan Stadium.

BOARDMAN — Austintown Fitch started slow on Friday night, but the Falcons woke up in the second half.

With the game tied at halftime, Fitch exploded in the second half to pull away from Boardman for a 31-14 victory at Spartan Stadium. It extended Boardman’s losing streak against Fitch to 10, as the Spartans haven’t beaten the Falcons since 2015.

“I think we needed punched in the mouth. I think we needed woken up and reminded that this is a rivalry game and that’s a team that really wants to win,” Fitch head coach TJ Parker said. “They did a good job of holding the ball and milking the clock, so we didn’t have many possessions in the first half. … You come out, get a three-and-out to open up the (second) half and we get the ball back and score quick. With their offense, it’s really hard to play from behind, and I thought that was the change in the game.”

The Spartans started things off after forcing a three-and-out on Fitch’s opening drive.

After a mishandled punt return, Boardman started off inside its own 10-yard line. But it didn’t matter, as quarterback Vince Butto broke a couple tackles between the hashes and took off into the open field for a 74-yard touchdown a few plays later.

The Falcons got their offense going on the ensuing drive, but came away scoreless after Jaxon Faulkner missed a 32-yard field goal.

Boardman took over hoping to extend its lead, but after two first-down runs, Victor Dimargio fumbled and Fitch took over.

The Falcons capitalized on the takeaway, as they drove down to tie the game with a 2-yard touchdown run by Deon’Dray Richard.

“Turnover killed us,” Boardman head coach DJ Dota said. “We’re not the type of offense that can put the ball on the ground. We needed to create momentum so that we can get them in other things they didn’t want to do. We could have went up, but we gotta respond on defense too, so it was one of those things.

With just a few minutes till halftime, Boardman tried to drive down and retake the lead. But ran out of time and had to settle for a 44-yard field goal attempt, which fell short of the goalpost, and the score remained tied at 7 at the break.

“It was a really good start. I thought we played a really good first half,” Dota said. “It was one of those things. I thought we played really well for two quarters, and third and fourth quarter, we didn’t play as well as we needed to to come away with a victory.”

Fitch seized momentum to start the second half. The Falcons’ defense got a stop, and then the offense struck quickly. Quarterback Collin Kalaher found Al-Tahire Iluono over the middle of the field, and he did the rest himself, navigating a host of Boardman defenders in the secondary on a 64-yard touchdown reception.

From there, things started to snowball for the Falcons, as Fitch added to its lead and made the score 21-7 with another touchdown drive that ended with Richard leaping into the end zone from 4 yards out.

Faulkner then redeemed himself from his earlier miss by drilling a 30-yard field goal that put the Falcons up 24-7.

Boardman wasn’t done though, as Butto hit CJ Rice on the next possession for a 30-yard touchdown pass, which cut Fitch’s lead to 10 with five minutes left. Butto led the Spartans’ offense with 137 yards on 18 carries, to go along with the rushing touchdown and passing touchdown.

But Richard put the game on ice with a 34-yard touchdown run less than a minute later. He finished with 123 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries, while Junie Higgs added to the Falcons’ rushing total with 110 yards on 12 carries and Iluono tallied 104 receiving yards and the touchdown on five catches.

“It was about tempo and moving the chains,” Parker said. “I thought Boardman did a good job of forcing us to play tight our first possession. … Then I thought we started getting some yards on the perimeter to soften them up. We started completing some passes to soften up the box, and offensively a lot of things started to come open.”