Cody Gross knew his team was close.

A week after nearly beating Florence on the road, the new Athens head coach got his first win with a 31-7 victory over East Limestone Friday at Athens Stadium. The Golden Eagles dominated their rival from the opening kickoff and were four minutes away from a shutout.

“East Limestone’s scheme was tough to prepare for,” said Gross. “I thought our staff did a good job and the players executed it. I’m very proud of those guys. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot offensively. I thought we left a lot of points out there.”

East Limestone line up in heavy personnel with multiple tight ends for most of the game, but could find no running room against a stingy Athens defense which held the visitors to 47 total yards in the first half.

“Basically, we were trying to build a wall and let the linebackers fill (the gaps) and they did a tremendous job with that,” said Gross. “Guys like Perry Kirby and Thomas Carter had unbelievable games.”

While the defense smothered the Indians’ offense, Athens jumped out to a 17-0 halftime lead thanks to a pair of Jalend Davis touchdown runs. Defensively, Athens recovered two fumbles — Darian Parker in the first quarter and Jackson Prater in the third quarter. Jerry Foster ended East Limestone’s only drive of the first half with a sack as the first half ended.

Logan Smothers ended any hopes of a comeback with a 16-yard scramble on Athens’ first drive of the second half.

The freshman quarterback completed 12 of 19 passes for 151 yards. Smothers carried the ball eight times for 62 yards and a score. Davis had nine carries for 57 yards and two touchdowns.

Davis opened the scoring on an run through the middle of the field in the first quarter. Sean O’Connor’s extra point gave Athens a 7-0 lead. O’Connor was 4 for 4 on extra points along with a 21-yard field goal.

After Athens forced their fourth consecutive three-and-out of the game, Davis capped a 12-play, 74-yard scoring drive with a 4-yard run to put AHS up 17-0 just before the half.

The best run of the night came from Jonte Lane, who bounced off a crowd of East Limestone defenders and ran down the Athens sideline for a 27-yard touchdown run to make it 31-0 with two seconds left in the third quarter.

East Limestone quarterback Andrew Parris scored on a 4-yard touchdown run with four minutes to play to avoid the shut out.

Athens (1-4) hosts Decatur (4-1) for homecoming next week while East Limestone (2-3) travels to Lawrence County (2-3).