Hartselle is 8-2 against Athens since September of 2014, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Friday. The Hartselle Tigers will host the Athens Golden Eagles at 7:00 p.m. Hartselle is coming into the contest hot, having won their last five games.
It was a proper cat-fight when Hartselle challenged Cullman on Friday. Hartselle sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 10-7 victory over Cullman. The ten-point effort marked the Tigers' lowest-scoring match of the season, but in the end it didn't matter.
Meanwhile, Athens' undefeated season came to an end after five games on Friday. They took a 56-42 bruising from Muscle Shoals. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game two weeks ago (39), the Golden Eagles still had to take the loss.
Athens might have lost, but man, Brogan Gross was a machine: he threw for 262 yards and five touchdowns, and also rushed for 70 yards. The dominant performance gave Gross a new career-high in rushing yards. Xavier Edwards was another key player, rushing for 113 yards and a touchdown on only 13 carries.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Athens was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 222 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 153 rushing yards in eight consecutive games dating back to last season.
Hartselle pushed their record up to 5-1 with the win, which was their fifth straight on the road dating back to last season. As for Athens, their defeat was their first of the season and also makes their record 5-1.
Hartselle was able to grind out a solid victory over Athens in their previous meeting back in October of 2023, winning 21-14. Will Hartselle repeat their success, or does Athens have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
