High School Sports

Youngstown holds on to beat Boardman in school debut

BOARDMAN -- Friday night represented the beginning of a new football season for most high schools around the state, but for Youngstown, Friday marked the beginning of the first season in the history of the football program after the merger of East and Chaney.

The city's Defenders fell behind to Boardman early in the second quarter, but Youngstown surged ahead and held on to a slim lead to earn the historic 13-10 win at Spartan Stadium.

"Boardman, just like last year, just like every year Coach [D.J.] Dota has been here, has played four quarters regardless of the situation. I can't compliment them enough," Defenders head coach Seth Antram said. "But we were able to come out on top. I'm happy for these guys to get rewarded for the time they put in.

"I think it's a weight off their shoulders. Now, we need to concentrate on getting better each week like every other football team does."

Youngstown's first offensive possession began smoothly enough, as senior quarterback Asuante Mickel connected on consecutive first-down passes to Khalil Mason and Mike Stanley, which helped the Defenders reach Boardman's 37-yard line.

However, as was the case plenty early Friday, a penalty put Youngstown behind the sticks and ultimately derailed a promising drive that ended with a turnover on downs.

Following a Spartans three-and-out and a punt off the side of Ryan Mitchell's foot, the Defenders took over with favorable field position, which they immediately forfeited with back-to-back penalties. A short Mickel punt quickly followed.

"It was Week 1, so both sides had some penalties and mistakes that they're going to iron out throughout the course of the season," Antram said.

On its next possession, another holding call negated a 19-yard Mickel scramble, which, along with an effective punt return by Aidan Moore, set up Boardman to score the first points of the game.

Getting the ball on the Defenders' 30-yard line, the Spartans leaned on tailbacks Isaiah Payne and Frank Butto, whose runs got Boardman to first-and-goal from the 6-yard line.

While, like Youngstown, the Spartans backed themselves up with successive penalties, junior kicker Oswaldo Salinas salvaged the drive with a 35-yard field goal to give Boardman a 3-0 lead with 9:13 left in the first half.

The Defenders quickly moved down the field on their next possession, picking up more than 35 yards in three plays. But on the fourth play of the drive, a shot by Mickel at the end zone proved costly, and Payne intercepted the pass for a touchback.

Youngstown, after forcing another three-and-out, would not be denied again.

Mickel kicked off the next drive with a 15-yard pass to Daylon Ferrell before Mickel rushed for 14 to reach Boardman's 11-yard line. Three ineffective plays afterward seemingly stalled a would-be scoring drive, but Antram kept his offense on the field for fourth-and-13 from the Spartans' 14.

Mickel took the fourth-down snap, dropped back and fired a pass over the middle to DeShaun Matlock in the end zone for a touchdown and a 6-3 lead.

Boardman, despite momentarily crossing midfield on its last drive of the half, was unable to score before the break.

The Spartans' opening drive of the second half similarly stalled, as a pair of Butto runs were undone by a delay of game and false start, resulting in another punt by Mitchell.

"It's maybe a little bit of [Week 1 jitters]," Dota said of the mistakes Friday. "I just think we have a lot of guys, even the guys that are juniors or seniors, they haven't played a lot of varsity football. You get two scrimmages, you get to work through a little bit of that, but we're going to need to get in games and work through that and see how our guys respond and play during a Friday night."

On the first play of his team's first offensive possession of the half, Mickel kept the ball on a read option and zipped down the field on a 36-yard run. He then threw a screen to Ferrell, who picked up a 12-yard gain. Triston Pollard then ran for 19 yards to put the Defenders inside the Boardman 15.

Much like its first scoring drive, Youngstown struggled to keep its momentum going, and it took another fourth-down conversion to put points on the board.

Facing fourth-and-8, Mickel rolled to his right and found Chris Bricker for a first-down completion. Then, Pollard finished off the drive with a short-yardage rushing touchdown. With the successful extra point, Youngstown went ahead 13-3 with 6:09 remaining in the third quarter.

"We just got back to what we are," Antram said. "We're a little bit more downhill run than we were trying earlier on, and penalties early in the first half put us behind the sticks. It's tough to call plays when you get behind the sticks."

After stopping the Spartans on a fourth down of their own, Youngstown missed out on another touchdown when a wide-open Mickel pass was dropped in the end zone. Mickel took a sack shortly afterward on fourth down.

Boardman responded with a slow and methodical drive down the field, eating up the rest of the third and nearly half of the fourth quarter with a touchdown drive to make it a 13-10 game with just 6:58 remaining.

The Defenders had the chance to ice the game with another touchdown, but their drive, buoyed by a costly defensive pass interference on a deep pass, stalled with about three minutes to go. Mickel, having taken a third-down sack, then punted the ball away to the Spartans.

In its last chance to tie or win the game, Boardman neared midfield after a personal-foul penalty on Youngstown, but the Spartans' run-heavy offense failed to move the ball any further before Logan Miller threw an interception to Stanley on fourth-and-long with 1:57 left to go.

"It's not something that we are made to do. We're definitely made to run the football, but we practiced two minutes, so we're in that situation, we know what we need to do," Dota said. "It isn't something that we're going to do every single play, so it's not normal for our offense, but it is something that we're ready and prepared for. ... Guys just got to execute plays. If there was a perfect play, we'd call it. There isn't, so we got to actually make sure we execute when we get in those situations."

The Defenders managed to pick up timely first downs on the subsequent drive to secure the first win in program history.

After the game, Mickel revealed that Youngstown had extra motivation going into Week 1.

"Sunday morning, they came out, coach sent to the group chat later on at night and said that they had us losing by 27 points against Boardman High School and we were going to be 1-8," Mickel said, referencing Ohio Fantastic 50's predictions. "And that just put the chip on our shoulder, and we want to go prove everybody wrong every week."

Boardman (0-1) is at Uniontown Lake, and Youngstown (1-0) visits Warren G. Harding next Friday.