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Boardman, Fitch set to renew their lengthy rivalry
By Greg Gulas
AUSTINTOWN
When the Boardman Spartans travel to Austintown tonight to take on the arch-rival Fitch Falcons, the game will mark the 68th renewal between the two former Steel Valley Conference and Federal League foes, and current All-American Conference, Gold Tier members.
They say that both sides need to win in order to qualify as a rivalry and while both the Falcons and Spartans have enjoyed back-and-forth victories and extended win streaks, the Falcons have gotten the better of their South Side foes in the new millennium, having won 10 of the 16 games that have been played.
“Cliches aside, records do not mean a thing when these two teams meet. They’ve never mattered,” said Rob Conklin, former Falcons athletic director who retired this past spring. “I have always believed that the two schools had a mutual respect for each other, except when they line up and go at it that one Friday night in the fall.”
Boardman won last year’s battle at the new Spartans Stadium, 10-3, while the Falcons won the three previous outings and own a .625 winning percentage since 2000.
Fitch (4-4) won the first ever meeting between the two schools, 26-13 in 1942 with the Spartans (3-5) reeling off the next nine wins from 1943-56 (they did not meet from 1945-48, and again in 1954) for the longest win streak in the series.
“From an athletic director’s standpoint, Austintown Fitch has always been a first-class program and we always enjoyed the competition,” added Dave Smercansky, who served as Boardman High School athletic director from 2001-13. “Once the helmets get strapped on, you knew you could expect a clean, hard-hitting game because bragging rights were on the line for the next year.”
By virtue of that nine-game win streak, the Spartans dominated play during the first three decades and owned a 14-7-1 overall mark.
Former Spartans quarterback Jack Hay, who would later serve as an assistant coach at his alma mater, played in three games from 1966-68 with the Falcons winning two of those contests.
“Our arch-rival from the early 1960’s until the mid-1970’s was Struthers, but that has since changed,” he saud. “What I do remember is that the Falcons were always a hard-hitting, well-coached team. My junior year we played at their place and won, 15-14. I sprained my ankle and think that I might have been concussed, yet re-entered the game. We were very lucky to win the back and forth battle.”
The decade of the ’70 produced a 5-5 split and since that time, the Falcons have won each subsequent decade.
Mike Trgovac, former Fitch all-state gridder and wrestler who later starred at the University of Michigan under head coach Bo Schembechler, currently serves as the defensive line coach for the Green Bay Packers.
He played in three rivalry games from 1974-76, noted that each was a defensive struggle but called the 1975 fray, a 7-0 win by Boardman on an interception for the only score as heartbreaking a loss as any he has ever been involved in.
“Each game was a slugfest, not many points were scored and it always seemed to come down to the end in order to decide a winner,” Trgovac said. “There was plenty of defense, which is right up my alley. I do remember that it was head coach Bob Price’s last game and we were as disappointed as he was to not be able to send him out a winner.”
Former Falcons baseball coach Wally Ford is another three game veteran (1971-73), but recalls the 1990 contest as the most memorable when he served as an assistant on Dave Hartman’s staff.
“Boardman was 9-0 and already in the play-offs. We were 7-2 and needed a win in order to make the play-offs,” Ford noted. “They had John Ryan at quarterback and he was an excellent field general. We took the early lead and everything just snowballed from there. We beat them 38-0 in a game that I could never have predicted would end up that lopsided.”
Former Boardman and Wake Forest star Steve Vallos, an eight-year veteran who played with six NFL teams, also played in three games (1999-2001) yet recalls the 1998 game (Boardman won, 21-0), his freshman year, as one of very best.
“My brother, Jim, was a senior on the team and I remember we were undefeated at the time of the game,” Vallos said. “Andy Zetts ran the ball like a madman and we shut them out. It didn’t matter if it was football, basketball, baseball or wrestling, you saw the same guys competing on both sides in every sport. It’s a healthy rivalry that has endured from their SVC days, to their time in the Federal League and now as members of the All-American Conference.”
Of the 67 games that have already been played, there have been 25 shutouts (Fitch has recorded 13), one tie (6-6, in 1964) and two overtime games (1996, won by Fitch, 7-0; 2009, won by Boardman, 24-21).
The Falcons have scored 996 total points, Boardman 967 and with 1,963 overall points tallied, 37 combined points tonight will push the series over the 2,000 point mark.