The Luverne Tigers started the season in style with a 55-26 thumping of Georgiana.

Ladorian Jackson got things started for the Tigers with a one-yard run with 5:33 left in the first quarter to put Luverne up 7-0.

After the Tiger defense stopped Georgiana on fourth down, Tige Townsend connected with Chris McGhee on the first play of the next drive for a 60-yard touchdown.

McGhee slipped behind the Georgiana defense’s left side and Townsend hit him in stride with a nearly perfect spiral for the score to make the score 13-0.

Georgiana responded by returning the kickoff for a touchdown, but the rest of the half belonged to Luverne.

Townsend found Lonnie Freeman for another 60-yard pass, this one to the Georgiana two-yard line, where Jamarcus June punched it in.

Before the end of the half, Luverne had two more touchdowns — one from Jackson and one from freshman Jonathan Chambers to make the score 33-6.

Luverne picked up where they left off in the second half with a 25-yard pass and catch from Townsend to Kevin Womack to make the score 40-6.

On the opening play of the fourth quarter, Kentrell Jones threw an eight-yard pass to Ben Boyd to widen the margin to 47-6.

Luverne had one more touchdown before Georgiana added a couple of scores in the last 1:45 of the game.

“One thing we did well was control the line of scrimmage,” said head coach Les Sanders. “We didn’t throw much, but our running game opened up the play-action pass. We also had some good throws and good catches.”

One area Sanders said the team needs to work on is defensive containment.

“We’re still having issues on the outside, and we’re not taking the right angles, but it’s not an effort problem – it’s an execution problem, and that’s my job to teach it,” he said. “We’ve still got things to work on.”