By john bassetti

bassetti@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

It’s a time of year more suitable for lemonade stands than football stands, for sunglasses instead of forward passes and for sunscreen lotion instead of men in motion.

But the Boardman High and Woodrow Wilson of Washington, D.C. teams were scheduled to play their season opener at mid-afternoon on a warm Saturday under a cloudless sky.

With a 35-man squad, the visitors from the nation’s capital stayed within 14-6 at halftime before the 70-man strong Boardman squad scored just seconds into the third quarter to put the Spartans on track to a 34-12 win.

“This is one of the better teams in the Washington D.C. city league,” Boardman coach D.J. Ogilvie said of Wilson. “I knew it was going to be a good opponent. A win’s a win, but there’s a whole lot we can coach-up on film.”

Devin Campbell scored three times as Boardman out-gained the Fighting Tigers on the ground, 294-40, and 408-189 overall.

With last year’s leading rusher Nick Buonavolonta nursing a twisted ankle, Campbell, a junior, was the featured back who ran 17 times for 96 yards.

Quarterback Trae Robinson and halfback Tyler Walls also had touchdowns and Dayne Hammond caught five passes for 52 yards for the Spartans, who answered questions about players in positions vacated by graduation.

Robinson has replaced Rob Boyd at quarterback, Hammond assumes the role held by his now-departed brother, Chase, and several defensive players made jarring hits to remind Boardman fans of last year’s defensive standout J.T. Moore.

“Campbell is definitely a good running back who played a lot for us last year,” Ogilvie said. “He stepped up and played well for us.”

Buonavolonta, who had 973 yards in 2009, aggravated an injury in practice.

“We kept him out as a precaution,” Ogilvie said. “He’s still sore, but he’s ready to go [for the Mooney game]. It was my decision to keep him out.”

Robinson, whose 51-yard gain from scrimmage on the first offensive play of the second half set up Campbell’s 8-yard TD run to give Boardman a 21-6 lead, shared time under center with Ryan Pollifrone, who first appeared late in the second quarter.

“They’re both varsity football players,” Ogilvie said, although classifying Robinson as the starter.

“I don’t worry who the starter is because they’re both deserving to play on Friday nights. They’re both going to be playing some quarterback for us.”

Of Hammond, Ogilvie said: “He’s our go-to guy. He’s a Division I prospect.”

Although Wilson advanced the ball, it didn’t crack the end zone much.

“I think we had good pursuit to the football that prevented [big plays],” Ogilvie said of his defense’s tackling. “I think that was a big thing in keeping them to two touchdowns.”

The Fighting Tigers had a tough time running the ball because linemen Austin Main, Eric Yovonovich, Zach Zidian and Zach Machuga put pressure on Wilson quarterback Rory Johnson.

Linebacker Delaney Son and Markovitch both intercepted a Johnson pass.

“It was a tight game, but we came out right away and put a score on them,” Ogilvie said. “I like to see that we came out in the second half ready to play. Plus, our defense played well.”

Wilson coach Horace Fleming III liked that his team stayed within striking distance until halftime, but, with fewer available bodies on the sidelines, the visitors eventually ran out of gas.

Regardless, he wasn’t happy that his Fighting Tigers allowed Boardman too much success on sweeps.

“I was pleased that they kept up the fight, but, what I wasn’t pleased with was our listening skills and our ability to absorb corrections,” Fleming said.

Reacting correctly, defensively, when Boardman ran sweep plays was the problem.

“When the same play keeps beating you over and over again, we’re doing something wrong and want to make a correction. We’ll do it right one time, but then forget. Instead of feathering a play, we chose to go inside. Then they’d push a block there and they’d go outside,” Fleming said. “Their sweep killed us today.

“We’ve also got to understand where our strengths are on offense. We should have kept going vertical, but when we try to go [pass] to the side, even if we caught it, it was a near-pick.”

Fleming said the game was a good fundamental test for his players, who must carry their equipment several city blocks or take a subway to practice because their school (1,500 enrollment) is being renovated.

“We’ve grown from this and we’ll be better next week.”