Spaghetti Bowl rivalry renewed
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LISBON -- It looked like the Spaghetti Bowl was done when the Lisbon and Leetonia football teams played last October.
School administrators worked on a deal to keep the longest continuous rivalry in Columbiana County going. The rivalry is renewed when teams will kick off the 2026 season at 7 p.m. Thursday at Lisbon's War Memorial Stadium.
"That's a big deal for anybody playing in it," Lisbon senior quarterback Grant Minor said. "It's bigger than yourself. We're just a number on a piece of paper, but that game will keep going. No matter what it finds a way."
Through World War II, through the coronavirus pandemic, the game has been played every year since 1940.
"It's good for the community, it's good for the kids, it's a good rivalry," Leetonia head coach Matt Altomare said. "We're happy to keep it around especially me personally. I spent some time down as a coach in Lisbon and am still close with people down there and they treated me real well. My father helped get the trophy going, so it has a special place. We're very similar communities and very similar programs. It will be fun."
When Leetonia announced it was leaving the Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference at the end of the 2025-25 school year for the Northeast Athletic Conference, it looked like Lisbon's 41-21 win over Leetonia on Oct. 17 was the end of the long-running series. A month later, it was announced
"It's a great way to open the season, especially on a Thursday," Leetonia senior quarterback Dylan Johns said. "It's going to be nice to fight for that trophy again."
"That is going to be one of the better games," Leetonia senior receiver Brayden Gainey said. "I can't wait for it. I'm excited."
This is the earliest date the Spaghetti Bowl has been played and it's the first time the game is the opener since the two played the opening week from 2006 to 2014.
"I'm ready for that. It's a big game. It's a trophy game," said Minor, who lives in the Leetonia district. "That's huge for us. They've got a lot of good players over there. Coach Altomare is a great coach. I had him as a freshman. I think it will be a good game. I'm excited to play them."
The game started being called the Spaghetti Bowl in 1977 when the losing team served the winning team a spaghetti dinner after the season. Altomare's father, Artie, was Leetonia's head coach then and helped start the Spaghetti Bowl tradition, although it no longer includes the spaghetti dinner.
Lisbon has claimed the Spaghetti Bowl the the last five years in a series that has gone on for eight decades.
"You can't even find people who know some of the people who played in the original games," Minor said. "I asked some people around Lisbon and they're like, 'No, I don't know who this was.'"
GAME NOTES
• Gainey is glad to be back on the field for the first time since tearing the ACL and both menisci in his left knee in the first half of last season's Spaghetti Bowl.
"I planted pushing trying to make a tackle and it just popped," he said.
After surgery, he said there was 8 1/2 months of recovery.
Gainey is the Bears' big-play maker and they'll get him the ball, whether in the air or on the ground.
"I'm back to being clear," he said. "Honestly, it feels better than before. Especially with wearing a brace, it makes it not too bad."
• Lisbon's 1995 Division V state championship teams remains the only OHSAA football state title in Columbiana County history.
Minor's father, Jeremy, was a junior on that team.
"When I drive in, every way you turn into town it says state champs," Grant Minor said. "I see it every day (at the stadium). It means something.
"My dad was one the team and his cousin, Steve Rodgers. I know some of those guys. That was a heck of a football team, obviously. They are one of a kind. I feel blessed to know some of those guys. I've actually learned from some of them."