MT. AIRY — Habersham Central football needed this.
The Raiders excorcised a few demons on Friday night, hammering East Hall 45-13 for a season-opening win in Mt. Airy -- the first season-opening victory since 2011 for a program that has won just three games over the past four seasons.
"I'm proud for the guys. They worked so hard, and they needed this," Habersham Central coach Benji Harrison said. "You can see in their faces, they're all excited. This is a true team; this team doesn't care about 'who'. They're just concerned about 'we' as a team and winning, and as a coach that's all you can ask for."
The Raiders (1-0) showed big strides in their first game of Harrison's second season in charge, putting up 428 yards of offense while holding a Vikings squad coming off back-to-back Class AAA playoff appearances to just 218 yards.
"It solidifies that if you work hard and continue to try to do things the right way, that the wins will come," Harrison said. "We've got a long way to go, we've got a lot of work to become a better football team, but we wanted to win this one bad, to start out with a win."
Michael Babers showed plenty of want-to, rushing for 183 yards and 3 touchdowns, including two in the second quarter as Habersham took control of the contest. Quarterback Cole Wilbanks also completed 15 of 21 passes for 175 yards and two touchdowns.
The Raiders defense also kept a high-flying Vikings (0-1) offense in check, as the Vikings could not score until Austin Parker's 7-yard scoring pass to Tripp Rider with 4:58 left in the third quarter, making the score 31-7. Parker finished 19 of 36 through the air for 209 yards 2 scores. But East Hall managed just 9 yards rushing.
"We tell our kids don't worry about the scoreboard. All you do is worry about each individual play as a game in itself. We knew they would make some plays on us, but all we had to do was keep fighting," Harrison said. "Our kids bought into that and they executed it as good as we could ask out of them."
The Radiers will take a bye week before taking on White County on Sept. 2.
East Hall will play host to Chestatee next week looking to bounce back.
