FRANKLIN – Not even Franklin-Simpson thought it was going to be that easy.

Right out of the gate, the Wildcats bullied Greenwood on their way to a 63-6 blowout Friday night at James Mathews Stadium.

Franklin-Simpson (2-2) did whatever it wanted in the run game and spread the wealth amongst a stable of backs. Five different players scored on all six drives in the first half behind 338 yards rushing.

“It was a lot of fun,” Franklin-Simpson coach Doug Preston said. “Our kids finally grew up in a lot of ways that they haven’t yet. That’s been our big focus … I was a little bit (surprised). Not that we played well and won big, I’ve been on the other end of that and it’s like a snowball, when it starts rolling downhill it just rolls and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s how it was tonight for us from the get-go.”

Greenwood (1-3) never had a shot at stopping that downhill rumble.

The Wildcats led 27-0 after one quarter and 48-0 at halftime. Even with a running clock and the reserves in the game for the second half, Franklin-Simpson kept rolling with two more touchdown runs to build a 63-0 lead.

By the skin of their teeth, the Gators avoided the shutout with Dalton Roddy’s 2-yard TD run with 15 seconds left in the game.

The loss was Greenwood’s worst since 1991 when it lost to Warren East 63-0 and the most points allowed since giving up 69 points to Christian County in 2006.

“We just didn’t play very well,” Greenwood coach Chris Seabolt said. “As I told our kids at halftime, when the snowball starts rolling down the hill it just gets bigger and faster. That’s what happened tonight. They’ve got some really nice-looking kids that can run and that showed tonight.”

Sophomore Tedric Partringer led that charge with a 48-yard touchdown run on the fifth play of the game and a 50-yard scamper late in the first half.

Partringer, who had four carries entering the game, ran three times for 100 yards in the first half. Tre Bass ran for 127 yards on three carries and Saul Brady added 91 yards on six attempts in the first half.

Bass, Brady and Carlos McKinney all scored in the first quarter to boost the Wildcats to a 27-0 into the second.

“We had something to prove,” Bass said. “We’ve already lost two, so we came in with the mentality to win.”

Meanwhile, Greenwood seemed to give the ball away as soon as it got it. Jackson Adams threw an interception over the middle to Wildcats linebacker Cade Harvey on the Gators’ first play, then fumbled with 16 seconds left in the first quarter.

When the Gators finally did put a drive together, it ended as soon as they reached the red zone on another fumble recovered by James Baker.

Baker recovered his second loose ball on the Gators’ next drive and returned it 17 yards to the end zone, stretching the score to 48-0.

Greenwood totaled four turnovers and had just 72 yards in the first half.

“It kept the momentum up,” Baker said. “We just wanted to keep running the score up on them and getting better and better.”

The Gators never found their footing in the second half with a running clock by turning the ball over on downs twice before a long kick return in the waning moments of the game set up Roddy’s short score.

Franklin-Simpson got second-half touchdowns from Cain Newland on a 52-yard run and Leande Stutzman’s 37-yard run in the fourth quarter.

“We tried to get outside and use what we had in terms of speed on the edge,” Preston said. “We knew sometimes with a young group you scratch what itches and when something starts working you don’t want to quit using it. It was good to see things clicking for us.”

GHS 0 0 0 6 – 6

FSHS 27 21 7 8 – 63

First quarter

FS – Partinger 48 run (conversion failed), 9:30

FS – Bass 23 run (Hollingsworth kick), 8:19

FS – McKinney 3 run (Hollingsworth kick), 4:28

FS – Brady 13 run (Hollingsworth kick), 0:28

Second quarter

FS – Thomas 1 run (Hollingsworth kick), 11:58

FS – Partringer 50 run (Hollingsworth kick), 5:52

FS – Baker 17 fumble return (Hollingsworth kick), 1:35

Third quarter

FS – Newland 52 run (Hollingsworth kick), 4:26

Fourth quarter

FS – Stutzman 37 run (Bass run), 5:16

GW – Roddy 2 run (conversion failed), 0:15{&end}