Athens needed only one offensive play to set the tone Thursday night.
Brogan Gross’ 73-yard touchdown pass to Jayshon Ridgle less than 20 seconds into the Golden Eagles’ rivalry game with East Limestone was just the beginning of the offensive fireworks for the road team.
Gross and Ridgle connected for three touchdowns (73, 39 and 14 yards) in total and Athens cruised to a 63-14 season-opening win.
Gross finished with five touchdown passes, and Silas Jones had a pair of rushing touchdowns, propelling Athens to its sixth straight win against the Indians. Caiden Dumas and Johnson Speegle had the other two touchdown receptions from Gross.
“We’ve got a long way to go and there’s a lot to clean up,” Athens coach Cody Gross said.” “Hopefully, we got some first-game mistakes out the way. We know we have to be better next week, but I’m proud of how we started, started fast.
“Defensively, we had a couple of penalties that kept drives alive after the whistle. We can’t do that, obviously. But it’s a whole lot more fun to clean everything up after a win.”
Athens led 21-0 by the 10:34 mark in the second period.
East Limestone’s first score of the season was a 29-yard touchdown pass from Jake Cochran to Jordan Moore that trimmed Athens’ lead to 21-7 with 7:51 left in the second quarter. Cochran added a 21-yard touchdown for the Indians with two minutes left in the half to make it 28-14, but Athens recorded a late touchdown to notch a 35-14 cushion at intermission.
The Golden Eagles then added four more touchdowns over the final 24 minutes, including scores from Robert Borden and Halston Barker, to put more distance between them and East Limestone.
Brogan Gross completed 10-of-15 passes for 272 yards and the five touchdowns. Ridgle, meanwhile, caught four passes for 142 yards and Jones finished with 63 yards on 10 carries.
Athens hosts Bob Jones on Friday, Sept. 1. East Limestone, meanwhile, travels to Central Florence next week.