By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Greenville football team lost their season opener to Eaton, 45-7, at Harmon Field on Aug. 18. The young Green Wave team hung in there at the beginning, but couldn’t keep up with the Eagles.

Head coach Bart Schmitz said the team gave it their best effort. They will just have to collect themselves after this one and look forward to the next opportunity they have to show what they can do.

“The boys played hard. We got to watch film, see what we got to get better at and continue to work at it. We have nine more games to see what we can do,” Schmitz said.

Eaton scored on their first two drives of the game. Senior quarterback Chris Atkins ran for a 24-yard touchdown and junior Cordis Berard scored on a 4-yard touchdown to go up 14-0.

The Eagles were looking to strike again on their third drive, but the Green Wave held tough and got a fourth down stop. They took over at about the 25-yard line.

From there, Greenville senior quarterback Evan Manix found some wiggle room and ran for a 62-yard touchdown to make it a 14-7 game with just under 11 minutes left in the second quarter.

For the remainder of the quarter, Eaton went to work. Sophomore Brycen Simpson scored from three yards out to go up 21-7. Senior Brayden Deem returned a punt from Greenville all the way into the redzone on the 12-yard line.

On the next play, Deem recovered a fumble in the endzone to go up 28-7. A 39-yard field goal as the half expired gave Eaton a 31-7 lead.

Schmitz said after they were able to get the stop and score, they couldn’t find a way to get another stop or get the offense moving. To him, it came down to two different areas of the game that the team needs to work on.

“We got to figure out a way offensively to keep our rhythm and try not to put our defense on the field as much. Defensively, we got to try to find ways to get stops,” Schmitz said. “It boils down to blocking and tackling. We got to get better in both of those areas.”

After Greenville turned the ball over on their first possession of the second half, Eaton scored right away. Atkins threw a 27-yard touchdown pass to senior Leslie Orr.

As the third quarter ended, Simpson rushed for another touchdown to put the game out of reach.

Greenville was young coming into this season and it showed. The team is ready to go back to work and continue focusing on improving as a whole.

“They’re a good group of kids and they work hard. They’ll get better, I have no doubt in that. That’s all you can ask for as a coach,” Schmitz said.

Greenville will start their conference schedule with a home game against Troy on Aug. 25. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]