This year on the opening week of the season Thursday night, it didn’t take the Falcons senior long to get going again against the Greyhounds.

He didn’t match his TD total from that game last year, but he did outdo his rushing yards total as he racked up 285 yards on the ground to lift the Falcons to a 28-6 victory in a Nine-Man South District, West Subdistrict football game at Johnson Field.

In his 28 carries Thursday, Carter Therkilsen saw three of those runs go for touchdowns. Starting the game with a 20-yard run, he followed that up immediately with a 59-yard TD run to get the Falcons on the board two plays and 24 seconds into the game. He then had a 2-point conversion pass to Finn Batalden to make it an 8-0 game.

“He’s our bell cow so to speak,” RRC head coach Isaac Jenniges said of his senior running back. “He’s our guy we can lean on for 30 to 35 carries if needed and it’s a good option to build stuff off of as we go throughout the season. We’ve got some other guys we can get involved and build off that and work off of that.”

It took a little longer for Carter Therkilsen to get his second touchdown of the game, but it was another big run when he got it, this time a 65-yard TD run on a four-play drive that took just 27 seconds off the clock. The 2-point try was no good and the Falcons led 14-0 with 3:54 left in the first half, a score that carried into halftime.

His third TD came late in the third quarter on a 10-yard run with 1:41 left in the third quarter to put the Falcons up three touchdowns. The 2-point conversion throw from senior quarterback Abraham Stavnes to Jordan Therkilsen made it a 22-0 game.

Stavnes was a big player in the game for the Falcons also as he finished with 19 carries for 108 yards and a touchdown, which came in the closing minutes on a 2-yard run up the middle.

“I thought Abe did a great job as the compliment to [Carter] today,” Jenniges said. “We can continue to build on that and look forward with that. We’ll be in a good place.”

For the Greyhounds, it was a slow start offensively as they were forced to punt on their first three drives. Greyhounds head coach Denny Lux was happy with his team’s overall improvement in the second half, however, against a now-veteran team.

“They had one senior last year, they returned all those guys,” Lux said. “They’re a little stronger and for 75% of our team, this was their first varsity game. And I thought the second half we played better. I thought the first half we were kind of questioning ourselves a little bit after maybe halfway through the first quarter, but you could tell the second half we were playing with much more confidence. Offense and defense, that’s what we needed.”

The Greyhounds got on the board with 7:14 left to play after a nine-play drive was capped off on a 3-yard TD run by Lane Ruch, who finished the game with 11 carries for 51 yards. The drive was aided by a 21-yard run from Alex Portner, who finished the game with 18 carries for 107 yards. That 21-yard run also saw a horse-collar tackle that gave the Greyhounds the ball at the RRC 14.

Greyhounds quarterback Eli Anderson had eight carries for 26 yards. While he struggled to connect with some of his targets in his first start at quarterback, Anderson did have a nice completion of 15 yards to Andrew Stern in the first half.

Ultimately the size of RRC and patience of Carter Therkilsen in the backfield proved to be too much for the Greyhounds to control in Week 1.

Cathedral (0-1) heads to Hector for a 7 p.m. Friday matchup next against Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart, while RRC (1-0) hosts Nicollet at 7 p.m. Friday.