Good food and football go together in Lowellville

Fantastic football and tummy-tickling homemade food. This must be Lowellville.
& lt;a href=mailto:kubik@vindy.com & gt;By MARALINE KUBIK & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
LOWELLVILLE -- Skip the fast food. Friday night in Lowellville means high school football and a hot meal like mom would make if she weren't going to the game.
Steamy bowls of homemade wedding soup.
Cavatelli covered in sauce.
Meatballs.
Fresh sausage.
Steak on bakery rolls.
That's just a sampling of the food that has Rocket fans turning out long before kickoff.
"People are actually in line to eat at 4 o'clock in the afternoon," said Greg Haren, president of the Lowellville Boosters Club and concession stand chairman.
Haren and his crew introduced their homemade specialties three years ago.
"You run 100 miles per hour every day of the week when you have kids," the father of three explained.
"Nobody has a chance to eat anymore. They drive through fast-food restaurants for a 99-cent heart attack. I wanted to give people a way out of that. Now, they can come to the game and eat."
That they do.
Dinner at the field
"My wife doesn't even make dinner. We go to the football field before the game and have dinner there," said Phil Alfano, village administrator.
He and his wife, Lynn, arrive more than an hour before each home game starts because, Alfano said, "it's tough to get close to the concession stand after about 6:15 p.m. Once the game gets started, there's a line continuously," he said.
"At halftime, don't even think about getting near the concession stand," said Bob Coppola, who gets to the field a minimum of 30 minutes before kickoff. Fifteen minutes later, he said, and he'd be waiting "a real long time in line."
Pepperoni rolls and wedding soup are Coppola's favorite menu items, but he said he sometimes orders cavatelli, especially if the soup pot is empty by the time he places his order.
"By halftime, we're always sold out of the soup," Haren said. The small kitchen limits how much food the volunteers can prepare and there's no space for more than 50 gallons of soup.
Gina Alfano, Phil's daughter-in-law, and her family like the wedding soup too.
They get to the football field about an hour before the game. With three young boys, Gina said, they usually eat dinner before leaving for the game and then order soup or cavatelli. "It's usually one or the other," she said. "The kids like the wedding soup."
Her oldest son, Joey, usually misses out. He plays in the band and doesn't have an opportunity to go to the concession stand until the third quarter and by that time, Gina said, the soup is usually gone.
"We sell out of everything every game," Haren said.
Visitors come early
Even some visiting fans show up early to eat, he said. Last night, it was the folks from Mineral Ridge, who were in town to watch their Rams play the 5-1 Rockets.
In addition to the homemade specialties, the Lowellville Boosters also offer traditional concession stand fare: hot dogs, corn dogs, burgers and fries.
About half of what the concession stand takes in is profit.
The group also provides Rockets players and coaches with pasta dinners once a week during the season and raises funds with a wedding soup sale, fish fry and homemade pizza sale in the winter.
& lt;a href=mailto:kubik@vindy.com & gt;kubik@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;