Julius Jones heard the talk all week of how Muscle Shoals was going to spoil Athens High’s home opener. And so did the rest of the Golden Eagle team.

Despite not feeling well before kickoff, Jones proved naysayer’s wrong along with the rest of his team with a 27-0 shutout of the Trojans.

“We took all that talk to heart,” Jones said following the win. “The newspapers had us beat, everybody had us beat and we came out here and showed everybody what we were about.”

The Golden Eagles took charge early, controlling most of the first quarter. Athens scored on its first possession of the game on a 2-yard quarterback keeper by Chris Cain. The extra point attempt by Armand Hunt was good for the 7-0 lead. After a 4-and-out series by both teams, Muscle Shoals regained possession of the ball but fumbled the Athens punt on their own 28-yard line. The Golden Eagles recovered it and later resulted in a 21-yard touchdown from quarterback Stephen Rivers to Jones. Hunt’s PAT was good, putting Athens up 14-0 with 25 seconds remaining in the first quarter.

“We certainly don’t look at it as another shut out,” head coach Allen Creasy said. “We look at it as doing what we were supposed to do in this game. Muscle Shoals is improving every week. I can’t say enough about how hard our guys played coming off a game like we played last week. It would have been easy for us to come out and feel sorry for ourselves and let them be more intense than we were tonight, and I don’t that was the case. I think we matched their intensity. We made some mistakes that cost us, but everybody does every week. We did a lot of things that were good, made a lot of play and I’m very proud for how they played.”

Athens struck again in the opening minutes of the third quarter on a 5-yard run by Cain, extending the Golden Eagle lead. Rivers hit Jones with a 49-yard pass for the final score of the game.

“It was a challenge for us dealing with all the hype this week,” Creasy said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Muscle Shoals or the Pittsburgh Steelers, if you have any pride, your going ti try and prove them wrong. We heard all the hype and all of the talking, and they deserved to be hyped. They beat a rival team that perennially they haven’t been able to beat and it set the town on fire. That’s great for high school football and it was great for this game tonight. There were a lot of people who heard the talk and thought things may turn out that way too, but we still come to practice everyday and are working hard. We’re still trying to improve and certainly don’t have all the answers yet, but we moved in the right direction this week.”