BY GREG GULAS
      Boardman News Sports
      bnews@zoominternet.net
      The Boardman Spartans football team is coming off a 6-6 mark from a season ago and after splitting a pair of playoff games, Head Coach D.J. Dota’s 2026 squad is poised to improve not only on their .500 regular season and tourney marks, but looking to make what they hope will be a deep post-season run.
      Last season, Boardman went a disappointing 2-4 at home while posting an impressive 4-2 mark away from Spartan Stadium. Trouble was they were never able to gather any momentum and piece together a win streak any longer than two games, which they authored on three separate occasions in ’25.
      The Spartans started the season 0-2 with losses to Twinsburg and Uniontown Lake at home, then evened their record at 2-2 with road wins over Chaney and Maple Heights, but dropped to 2-4 after back-to-back home losses to Cuyahoga Valley Christan Academy and Cardinal Mooney, only to even their record at 4-4 after eight games with victories at Warren G. Harding and at home versus Howland.
      Boardman dipped to 4-5 in the ninth week after a 31-14 home loss to arch-rival Austintown Fitch but came out swinging against Canfield in the Battle of Route 224, stopping the Cardinals by an exciting 22-21 count at home to once again pull back to the .500 mark.
      A win over Painesville Riverside (38-28) set the stage for a second-round game in Week No. 12, a 38-0 setback on the road at Akron Archbishop Hoban (38-0) that ended their season.
      It was a year that left Dota and staff feeling more like they were charting used car sales than placing wins, losses or statistics on graph paper.
      “Last year, I thought we did really well in our scrimmages,” Dota said while recapping the ’25 campaign. “I think our kids maybe felt a little bit too good about themselves as we came out against Twinsburg, were up 28-6 with a little over 10 minutes remaining but ended up losing hat game. It was a game we should not have lost but hats off to Twinsburg because they just kept playing. We had to keep our cool and do things the right way, we just didn’t execute the way we needed to at the end of the game.”
      The Spartans were outscored 336 (28.0 points per game) to 266 (22.2 ppg) in their 12 games (an average of 5.8 points per fray) but scored 20-plus points seven times, were held to single digits just twice and failed to score just once.
      Conversely, opponents scored at least 20-plus points in 10 of 12 contests and failed to score in double digits just once.
      “With all that our guys went through last season, the ups and downs, we remained focused on what was important,” Dota added. “Mentally, our focus that whole time was improving every week and getting better at all the things that we needed get better at. We ended up getting a great win at the end of the year against Canfield then came out and got a road win over a really good Painesville Riverside squad in the first-round of the playoffs.
      “That was a game two years in the making because that first year in 2023 wasn’t such a good year, but that second year I thought we should have had them. All we needed was a first and 10 at the end of the game but couldn’t finish it. A lot of our sophomores played that first year, so I think they wanted to play Riverside just because physically they dominated a lot of our players from that sophomore class. Now, those sophomores were seniors and playing a game that they really wanted and the end result was a 10-point victory in the opening round of the play-offs.”
      The off-season came together as anticipated with the entire staff and squad primed and ready for the upcoming season.
      “I’m pretty happy where we are as our kids did everything we asked them to do,” Dota stated. “We had great senior leadership last year, so I think from this point what we are building here is transitioning year in and year out. We will see how that rolls for us this year.”
      Offensively, the Spartans will continue to run the Wing-T while defensively, they remain a 4-4, cover ‘3’ team.
      Dota welcomed 48 players to the fold, having lost seven starters on each side of the ball with just four starters returning to provide much needed leadership both on and off the field.
      ”That is a lower number than we have had over the years, but our recent senior classes have not been very big,” Dota noted. “It has kind of been that way so I think that those numbers are hurting us. Our sophomore and freshman numbers are really big and I would say that our junior class numbers are too. The staff did a really good job in the off-season. I thought our freshman kids and their lifting all year long, knowing that our numbers are small was great because we are going to need a lot of those players as sophomores so that class has done a great job.
      “Also, we did a great job of just getting them prepared to play from a strength and conditioning standpoint. You are still going to go out and play and an 18-year-old is an 18-year-old, and a 16-year-old is a 16-year-old but at the end of the day, I think they are physically ready to compete. We excelled and kept building off the things that we had with our junior and senior classes and we are trying to adapt and get all those guys ready as sophomores and juniors, guys that didn’t get to play and only had JV and freshman games to get them ready, at least from strength and conditioning standpoint.
      “That is something we really focused on. I thought we did a good job of that so we will see how that pays off as we go into Week No. 1 and throughout the season.”
      Heading into the campaign, the offensive depth chart – which can change on a moment’s notice – has Logan Miller and Cash Felger battling it out for signal-calling duties with Ryan Mitchell, Isaiah Payne and Jordan Hodge all set for playing time at tailback.
      Frank Butto and Zezo Hadidan are the fullback hopefuls with Coben Scarcella and Dishawn Robinson the X receivers, and Aidan Moore the Z receiver.
      Kelly Pavlik and Carter Detmer, both returnees, are one of the area’s top one-two punches at tight end.
      Cody Helmick and Korbin Matula remain in a battle for the starting center slot, Owen Selly is slated for duty at left tackle, Logan Perry is the left guard, Alvin Bogart the right tackle while Khaled Mohammed is the right guard.
      Defensively, Detmer and Pavlik are the ends with Mohammed at one tackle, and either Bogart or Selly slotted in for duty at the other tackle slot.
      Inside linebacker hopefuls include Butto, Perry and Robbie Lochrane while the staff has the luxury of picking their two outside linebackers from a list that includes Mitchell, Santino Walker, Zain Esmail and Felger.
      Five players, Moore, Hadidan, Scarcella, Hodge and Payne will be looking for a starting assignment at the three defensive back positions.
      Special teams, according to most coaches, are the key to either winning or losing a game and the Spartans are set to make some noise in ’26 with their special teams.
      Two Spartan soccer players, Brody Farris and Oswaldo Salinas, will be counted upon to handle the kick-offs, and PAT-field goal duties while Mitchell and Hodge are in a battle for the starting punting assignment.
      Mitchell, Hodge and Robinson are the kick returners while Moore and Hodge will handle the punt return duties.
      The long snapper is Mohammed while the holder is Miller.
      After scrimmages at Strongsville (Auguist 7) and Solon (August 14), the Spartans open their season on August 21 when they play host to Youngstown City Schools.
      They will then travel to Uniontown Lake (August 28) and Liberty (October 4), hosting Louisville (September 11) then traveling to Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy (September 18) to complete the first half of the season.
      They begin second half play by hosting Erie McDowell (September 25) in the annual Boardman Booster Club Athletics Hall of Fame game, will host Warren Harding (October 2) in Week No. 7 then host Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary (October 8) in Week No. 8.
      The team closes the regular season on the road when they travel to arch-rival Austintown Fitch (October 16), concluding Week No. 10 action at Canfield on October 23.
      “It’s one week at a time and just taking our time,” said Dota. “We open up with Youngstown City Schools and that is going to be the WKBN Game of the Week. They are going to be excited about playing their first football game, then we have Uniontown Lake and have to go there. It’s a tough schedule, has always been challenging since I’ve been here and over the past couple years in Division II, our schedule has been ranked anywhere from eighth to 12th toughest in the state.
      “It’s going to be challenging because we have young people and we are going to have to get them going quickly. Our seniors are going to have to really step up with what we do and we are going to have to improve on a weekly basis. Again, it isn’t where we start in Week No. 1, it will be where we are in Week No. 10 and how we develop as a team.
      “Whether that’s chemistry, fundamentals or working in all three phases of the game, just working with each other. All those things are going to come together and with the guys I have on our staff and the kids that we have as leaders, I think that is something we’ve done a really good job of over the last two years. Hopefully, we will continue doing that.”
      This year’s staff includes assistants Michael Popio, Tim Calhoun, Corey Snyder, Jason Congo, Paul Butto, Tremaine Pixley, Mike Lodyn, William ‘Bud’ McSuley, Tom Ciccolelli, Steve Stahura, Zach Haus and Joe Sferra.
      “We have a great group of coaches with five guys on the defensive side of the ball having either been head coaches or defensive coordinators so there’s a lot of experience,” Dota added. “I have had great, long relationships with all of our coaches.”