MARYSVILLE — A blue moon rose over the season opener between the Arlington Eagles and the Marysville-Pilchuck Tomahawks at Quil Ceda Stadium on Aug. 31, and the Tommies proved that victories won’t be a rarity for them this season when they dealt the Eagles a rough 42-14 defeat.

The Tomahawks came out strong in the first half with five touchdowns scored — three by junior quarterback Jake Luton and two by sophomore running back Austin Joyner. Luton and Joyner both ended up having the most inspired performances of the evening, with Joyner rushing 37 yards on two carries in the first quarter, including a play that had the crowd cheering on its feet. The Tomahawk offense finished off its five-play drive with a 2-yard quarterback sneak by Luton. Joyner scored two touchdowns before the end of the first half, including a 9-yard carry and a 9-yard reception.

Arlington’s first touchdown came toward the end of the second quarter when senior running back John Decker completed a 2-yard touchdown run. Decker proved to be a strong part of the otherwise relatively young team, finishing with 141 yards rushing on 21 carries.

Despite the efforts of both Decker and junior quarterback Austin Wells, Arlington’s offense was slow to respond to the Tomahawks’ dominance on the field during the first part of the game and the Eagles went into halftime trailing 35-7.

“I thought we played really well in the first half,” said M-P head coach Brandon Carson. “In the second half they kind of held us off a bit more.”

Carson agreed that Joyner was one of the leading players in the game. “Austin Joyner had a really good game,” he said.

Although the team came to the field with stunning offense, they made some errors that Carson is looking to correct in coming games.

“We had a few too many turnovers,” he said. “We’ve just got to get better. We’ll fix that problem and we’ll keep getting better as we go forward.”

The second half of the game didn’t yield as many touchdowns as the first, but senior running back Kacey Walker rushed 7 yards for the Tomahawks’ final touchdown in the third quarter. The score was 42-7 going into the fourth, which kept Marysville a safe distance in the lead despite a final Arlington touchdown by senior Skylor Elgarico in the fourth quarter.

“I think our team came out really fired up and excited to play, and we all contributed,” said senior wide receiver Kyle Nobach, who is gearing up for the next game already. “I think we need less turnovers next time, but our pursuit on defense looked pretty good. And Luton is looking really good, he has a lot more experience than last year.”

Despite Marysville’s clear success on Friday, the game against their old rivals is now non-league as M-P has been reclassified from 4A to 3A. The change didn’t affect the competition from the Tomahawks, however.

“We’ve played the same guys we’ve been playing for a while,” said Carson. “I thought the team played really well and obviously I’m happy with where we are at right now.”

The 1-0 Tomahawks are set to face Lake Stevens in an away game on Friday, Sept. 7 at 7 p.m.