Staff photo / Brian Yauger McDonald’s Drew Zajack (10) carries the ball for a gain during Friday’s game against Lowellville.

LOWELLVILLE — For McDonald, Friday’s contest against Lowellville had all the makings of a trap game. The Blue Devils entered hostile territory undefeated, and Lowellville had just one win and nothing to lose.

Despite the Rockets throwing the kitchen sink at McDonald and then some, the Blue Devils held on to beat Lowellville, 21-14, and remain undefeated.

“When you’re undefeated, you’ve got a target on your back and everybody’s trying to knock you off,” McDonald coach Dan Williams said. “I told the kids that Lowellville’s going to come and play to the end and they did. They started off strong and ended strong. We were fortunate to get a couple turnovers in the second half that stalled a few of their drives, and we had a big play by Josh Krumpak to put us ahead.

You gotta face adversity if you’re going to win every football game. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve seen it happen where you always got one somewhere that’s going to challenge you and tonight, hopefully it was the one, but we’ve got a tough schedule ahead of us. We got three great opponents ahead of us, so we’ve got to keep our nose to the grind and keep working.”

The Blue Devils struck on the first play from scrimmage, with Drew Zajack breaking through on a 58 yard run.

Lowellville responded with Ricky Willrich connecting with senior AJ Boehlke on a 24-yard strike.

The Rockets took their first lead of the night in dramatic fashion, with Willrich dodging tackle after tackle on a 3rd-and-35. Despite being nearly dragged to the ground multiple times, Willrich found Michael Lucido deep, who caught the ball and raced the rest of the way on a 75-yard score.

But the Blue Devils (7-0) were able to even the score before the break, with Kyle Puckett finding junior Preston VanMeter on 4th-and-10.

After a back-and-forth in the third quarter, which saw a pair of offensive turnovers in the end zone by McDonald, the Blue Devils broke the 14-14 deadlock in a big way. Puckett connected with Josh Krumpak who raced down the sidelines nearly untouched for a 60-yard score.

Now trailing, Lowellville was quick to respond, making it down to the 12-yard line with a chance to re-tie the game. But Willrich’s pass wound up in the hands of McDonald sophomore Quinn Schmidt, who intercepted the ball in the end zone, and carried it out to the 29-yard line, giving the Blue Devils space to kill the clock.

They couldn’t add to the lead, but wound the clock down to 3:26 and set the Rockets (1-6) up with 73 yards to go if Lowellville wanted to send the game to overtime.

The Rockets drove down the field, but Jordan Perry intercepted Willrich’s pass to ice the game for McDonald.

It’s been a tumultuous season for the Rockets. Between battling injuries and a late hiring, Lowellville coach Drew McLaughlin had his hands full. But despite the result, he couldn’t be more thrilled with how they fought against McDonald.

“I’m so proud of our guys,” he said. “You have no idea. We had a lot of injuries, our center was out, both tackles were out. We had a backup running back at center tonight. He snapped the ball. I think we dressed 22 guys tonight. The way we fought, I mean, we came down to the last play. I am so proud of these guys, you have no idea.

“We were a play away from beating McDonald, a 6-0 team. (I hope we can) build that into the next three weeks. We still have plenty of opportunities this year. There’s still playoffs in sight, so we’re going to build off this and go into next week.”

Next week, Lowellville plays host to Jackson-Milton, while McDonald welcomes Campbell.