Correspondent photo / Michael G. Taylor. East's Daryan Brownlee (1) stretches for a 1st down as Chaney's Jordan Hewlett (6) makes the tackle on Friday night at Rayen Stadium.

YOUNGSTOWN — Before Friday, Youngstown East last beat Chaney in football in 2010. Since the Cowboys restarted their varsity program before the 2019 season, the Golden Bears had lost in convincing fashion in each of the five games to their city rival.

East came ready to play and end that drought Friday, though, and defeated Chaney 14-13 for its first city series win in 14 years.

“I’m proud of my guys,” East coach Devlin Culliver said. “We had some rough weeks and a couple of games we should have won. But these kids have confidence and they believe in me, the coaches believe in them. They believe in the coaches. We came together, and it was a great game. This is what a rivalry game is supposed to be like.”

The Cowboys had dominated the rivalry since it resumed in 2019 — Chaney had outscored East 158-8 in the five games — but could do little to slow the Golden Bears’ offense early.

On its first drive of the game, East erratically moved the ball down the field. The Bears were stifled by Chaney’s defense on first and second down but moved the chains on big-yardage third-down plays.

The first came in the form of a 15-yard pass from Keylin Warren to Lamar Claytor, and the other a 42-yard pass on the run by Warren to Tyris Davis.

After being stopped three times inside the 10, East’s offense finally scored on fourth-and-goal with a 6-yard Claytor reverse to give the Golden Bears, whose two-point try failed, a 6-0 lead.

Chaney’s offense failed to respond and was forced to punt on its first possession before losing a fumble on its second.

The turnover gave the Bears the ball at the Cowboys’ 48, which quickly led to another East touchdown.

On the third play of the drive, Warren connected with Davis, who leaped and brought down the pass in the end zone for a 33-yard touchdown. After a two-point conversion, the Bears extended their lead to 14, where it would not stay for long.

On Chaney’s next drive, do-it-all back Matt Jones rushed for a 28-yard touchdown to put the Cowboys within seven.

After that touchdown early in the second quarter, the score remained 14-7 for most of the rest of the game, which featured numerous penalties that put both teams at a disadvantage.

However, with less than four minutes in regulation, after being stopped on fourth down inside East’s 20, the Cowboys forced and recovered a fumble.

A few plays later, Jones rushed for his second touchdown of the game, putting Chaney one extra point away from tying the game. But amid windy conditions and pressure up the middle, the Cowboys, whose special teams struggled at times Friday night, missed the PAT wide left.

East, after a first down, ran out the clock and secured its first win over Chaney since 2010 and first winning season since 2018.

“For some strange reason, certain people in Youngstown look at East as a bad school. ‘It’s a terrible place to go to school.’ They know nothing about East High,” Culliver said. “Our kids came out here tonight and proved that we got some class, we can win with class, we ain’t starting any fights, we ain’t causing any problems. So I’m proud of my kids for their behavior, even more than the win we had tonight.”

While East (6-4) is projected to miss the postseason, Chaney (3-6) will likely play Ursuline in the first round of the postseason next week.

For that reason, Chaney head coach Seth Antram said his team will need to quickly move past the stinging rivalry loss.

“We don’t have a choice if we want to try to do something in the playoffs,” Antram said. “We have to move on, and that’s just got to be a mindset that we have to take.”