Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Boardman quarterback Vince Butto (12) runs the ball against Austintown Fitch during a game at Spartan Stadium on Oct. 17.

BOARDMAN — There are only 15 local football teams still practicing for games on Friday night.

One of those teams is Boardman, and head coach DJ Dota had two things he wanted his boys to understand heading into Week 12: the importance of execution and they have nothing to lose.

“I just want their best on Friday night, on game night,” Dota said. “But we have to prepare all week to get there to be able to do that, but you can’t do that and not show up on Friday night either.”

The Spartans had a unique run to a Division II, Region 5, quarterfinal. There was a big gamble, as well as a week of preparation that set up Friday’s meeting in Akron with Archbishop Hoban.

Boardman entered Week 10 as the No. 12 seed in the region, the last spot in the tournament. The Spartans needed to knock off undefeated Canfield to punch their ticket to the playoff, while a loss would have ended their season.

The game against the Cardinals went into overtime, and the Spartans wanted to bring it to an end.

Quarterback Vince Butto scored the game-tying touchdown, and Dota opted to go for two. Butto, the leader of the team’s Wing-T offense, completed the two-point pass to 6-foot, 2-inch tight end Carter Dettmer for the winning score of a 22-21 victory.

“I kinda wanted to go for it before we went to overtime, but we decided not to,” Dota said. “We scored that first touchdown. We had two plays we wanted to run — they were both pass plays — and we let Vince call which one he wanted, and we ended up calling our waggle play. Good execution by everybody up front, good route running and Vince seeing that guy wide open.

“That was fun. It was good for our kids, it was good for our program. Getting a win like that, it was signature. It propelled us into the playoffs.”

Last Friday, the Spartans came in as the underdogs when they traveled to Riverside for their playoff opener. However, they took care of business, besting the eighth-seeded Beavers 38-28.

It was Boardman’s first playoff win since beating a winless Cuyahoga Falls squad in the opening round of 2020’s expanded tournament.

“Every week we come out, we have to play our ‘A’ game,” Dota said. “I think our kids understood that. They’re just very resilient, and I think last week kinda proved that.”

It was also the fourth win in the last five games for the Spartans. The only loss came via a 31-14 meeting with Austintown Fitch.

Boardman’s turnaround has been fueled by an improved performance by Butto under center. Over the last five games, the senior has completed 17-of-34 passes for 229 yards and three touchdowns, and on the ground, he’s carried the ball 73 times for 524 yards and six scores.

“He’s done a great job managing our offense,” Dota said. “I think we’ve done a good job of bringing him along, to understand he’s putting our offense in a lot of good situations. With what we do from a week-to-week basis, he understands if we’re in something and we don’t like it, he recognizes what we should be in.”

Meanwhile, the Spartan defense has kept the games within reach. Over the last five games, Boardman only allowed 18 points per game and only gave up over 200 yards of total offense twice.

But the most difficult test of the season awaits on Friday.

Hoban is a football powerhouse, and a consistent contender for the state championship over the last 10 seasons.

Dota has spent the last two seasons preaching the importance of execution and playing complimentary football. His players have done that over the last couple weeks in key situations, and now they have one more shot with their season on the line.

“It’s about us, it’s about being a great team, it’s going to be about 11 guys playing their butts off with great effort every single play for four quarters — being resilient, understanding the situation,” Dota said. “It’s playoff football, we go home if we lose.

“It’s them, but it’s more about us and what we do. If we don’t play with great effort, if we don’t play with great technique, if we don’t execute our plan, we won’t give ourselves an opportunity. So we have to do those things first.”