By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

sports@vindy.com

LOWELLVILLE

Lowellville quarterback Evan Filip said the Rockets’ coaches told him he might be carrying the football quite a bit against the Springfield Tigers.

The junior never imagined it would be 34 times.

Filip engineered four scoring drives and scored twice on runs of three and four yards as Lowellville (2-1) turned away Springfield 27-14 Friday night.

In a matchup between Inter Tri County League Tier I (Springfield) and Tier II (Lowellville) teams, the Rockets displayed a dominating running game that the Tigers had little success against.

Filip finished with 149 yards as Lowellville played keep-away from the bigger Springfield team.

“The coaches told me that I might get a lot of carries in this game,” Filip said. “We just did as best we could. Everyone gave it their all.

“My line was tremendous tonight. They get all the credit. We just ran a lot of option and picked the holes to run through.”

Lowellville established the line of scrimmage on its first possession of the game and after five straight running plays, four by Filip, the Rockets scored on a 21-yard pass play from Filip to Tony Schialdone.

The Rockets were even more impressive in the second quarter when Filip marched Lowellville 80 yards in 16 plays while eating up more than eight minutes of clock.

Filip scored on a three-yard run with 45 seconds left in the half for a 14-0 lead.

“That drive was very important,” said Lowellville coach Mike Palumbo. “It gave us a lot of momentum going into halftime. It showed what our offense is capable of if we don’t make any mistakes.”

Lowellville had another long drive to start the third quarter that ate up all but the 2:22 of the period.

This time Lowellville drove 76 yards on 17 plays before Filip ran in on fourth and goal from the four for a score.

“[Lowellville] Coach Palumbo does a great job with that offense,” said Springfield coach Sean Guerriero. “They had been averaging over 300 yards on the ground coming into this game so we knew it was a big task for our defense.

“They attacked our weaknesses and they did a great job. They didn’t turn the ball over and had a great advantage in time of possession.”

Springfield’s offense did strike quick following the Rockets third score when quarterback Brad Ferraro found Joe Ohlin open for a 59-yard touchdown catch.

It was the Tigers only real offensive threat on the night as Lowellville’s defense held Springfield to 56 yards on the ground and 188 total yards.

The Rockets put the game away in the fourth quarter on a nine-yard scoring run by Geno Tkach with 3:16 left.