After a touchdown during the opening 18 seconds and a lead that never budged, Tiger football was back and in full swing as of Friday’s home opener. The boys defeated the Quincy Blue Devils 34-9.

With a new season comes changes, and losing starting quarterback Dan Marinko to graduation was a big one. However, this change has given senior Riley Jones the opportunity of stepping into Marinko’s shoes.

“I have high expectations because of what Dan has accomplished, but I’m more than ready for the task,” Jones said.

Seniors were on edge as they started their first game for their final year at EHS.

“It felt good to open up senior year with a win. I was pretty nervous but it was more of an excitement and a ‘it’s finally here’ kind of feeling,” senior defensive end Desmond Chapple said.

The atmosphere brought by the Orange Rush fan section helped turn up the hype and conceal any anxiety towards the team’s opener.

“[Orange Rush] was amazing. It’s hard to not want to play good in that kind of atmosphere. It was such a good sight to look up and see everyone there and cheering. You always want to play hard for them,” Chapple said.

Jones also felt the crowd brought a whole new side to the game.

“The atmosphere made it a lot easier to overcome my nervousness and calm me down. I couldn’t ask for a better way to start my senior year of football,” Jones said.

After completing their first game of the season , Jones and Chapple are more than ready for reaching their goals this impending season.

“[I’m] glad the season finally started and pretty excited to see what we can do this year,” Chapple said.

“As a team it would to be first to get the 3-peat as conference champions and go undefeated in the conference. After that compete for the state championship,” Jones said. “There are a lot of talented teams in the state especially at the 8A level. So it will be extremely hard but as [players] I think we are willing to work as hard as we can to get there and I know our coaches will be right there with us.”

The team still has work to do before reaching these goals. Chapple summarized Coach Martin’s thoughts after the game.
“Of course it felt good to win but [Coach Martin] knows that we are not where we want to be. There’s much room for improvement and it starts in practice when no one is watching. That is the message and we just want to get better every single practice.”