MUSCLE SHOALS – In its first two games of the season, Athens had struggled with slow starts. But against Muscle Shoals Friday night, it wasn’t the start that was the problem, it was the finish.

Athens held Muscle Shoals’ normally potent offense to just seven points in the first half, but couldn’t hold the Trojans in the second half in a 35-14 loss in a Class 6A, Region 8 matchup.

“It’s the same old song, but at least we started the game better,” Athens coach Cody Gross said. “We came out much more ready to play than the previous games, and other than a handful of plays, the defense was lights out. But the big plays keep getting us.”

Muscle Shoals (3-1, 2-0) held Athens (0-3, 0-2) to three first downs and 85 total yards in the first half, while running back Carlos Davis carried the offense with 113 yards rushing and the game’s only first-half score. The senior broke free for a 17-yard touchdown run to cap an 8-play, 55-yard drive with 7:21 remaining in the first quarter.

“We hadn’t played real good defensively and that was a big emphasis this week in practice,” Muscle Shoals coach Scott Basden said. “I’m proud of our defensive coaches and I’m proud of our kids. When they play, they’re pretty good.”

Sound defenses gave way to high-powered offenses in the second half, with Keevon Hankins highlighting the Trojan offense. The speedy sophomore tallied 128 yards, including touchdown runs of 33 and 35 yards, to help Muscle Shoals pull away in the fourth quarter.

Quarterback Terrell McDonald scored on touchdown runs of 12 and 2 yards in the third quarter as the Trojan offense overcame its sluggish start.

Athens abandoned its struggling running game in the second half in favor of short passes and finally broke through.

Logan Smothers, brother of former Muscle Shoals quarterback Landon, hooked up with Jaylen Gilbert out of the backfield for a 14-yard touchdown to make it 21-7 after three quarters.

Athens cut the lead to 7 early in the fourth quarter, when Smothers found Braden Gross alone down the sideline for a 25-yard touchdown.

“We finally got into a rhythm offensively in the second half, but it was too little, too late,” Gross said. “We finally started hitting on some plays down the field. It’s hard to drive it down the field three or four yards at a time. The big plays helped us out offensively.”

But 21-14 was as close as the score would get.

Muscle Shoals went back to its ground game, with Hankins scoring back-to-back touchdowns to seal it.

“My hat’s off to Athens,” Basden said. “They came over here with a little different front that we would normally see to try and take away the run. It was just a team effort and everybody did what they had to do to get the victory.”

For Gross, while an improvement over the previous week’s 35-7 home loss to Hartselle, Friday’s loss was still frustrating due to big plays given up by the defense and some offensive struggles.

“Football is the greatest team sport there is,” Gross said. “Everyone is counting on everybody to fit their piece of the puzzle. When you play talented teams, and our schedule is full of them, if you don’t do your job, they’ll exploit it. It’s not like it’s one guy. If it was one guy, it would be easy, we’d just fire him and put somebody else in. But we’ve got to find some consistency across the board.”

Athens will host Florence Friday night in another region contest. The Falcons (1-2, 1-1) are coming off a 35-14 upset victory over Hartselle.

Ben Griffin of the TimesDaily contributed to this report.