Athens capped its regular season Friday night with a 45-23 road victory against Russellville.

The Golden Eagles improved to 8-2 on the season following the win and will travel to Homewood next week for the first round of the Class 6A playoffs.

“This wasn’t our best night, but we made the plays when we needed to make them,” Athens coach Cody Gross said. “We got stops when we needed them and scores when we needed them, but there are a lot of things we need to clean up before next week.”

Xavier Edwards provided a pair of rushing touchdowns in the first half to help Athens seize a 26-16 halftime lead. Damarcus Malone also scored on the ground, while Brogan Gross opened the scoring in the first quarter with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Endymion Tyus.

“We’ve got a really tough bunch of competitors,” Gross said. “Our motto is ‘Tough People Win’ and I’ve challenged them all season to live up to that and make that something real. I think they’ve done that and I believe we are a tough team — and that makes me proud.”

Russellville cut its deficit to 26-23 in the third quarter, but the Golden Eagles pulled away from there.

Gross threw a touchdown pass to Grady Sullivan, Edwards added his third rushing score of the clash and Jaxon Unger punctuated the win with a 65-yard pick six.

“We still have not played our best ball yet — and we are running out of time,” Gross said. “We definitely didn’t do it tonight, so we are going to have to do it next week. If we don’t do it next week, then we won’t play another one. We have some momentum and confidence going into it, but we have to clean up some things to be where we want to be.”