The Middlesboro Yellow Jackets kicked off the Larry French era in a good way by defeating Garrard County 34-32 on the road Friday night.

“It’s always great to start the season off with a win,” said Middlesboro coach Larry French. “We made some mistakes, we are still a young team, but overall we did what we need to do to win the game. I thought we did a really good job at blocking on offense, allowing our ball carriers to have a lot of success on the ground.

“We have some great athletes on the field. We’re going to try to find a balance between our rushing attack and our passing attack. Garrard is a good team with good players, and we are happy to have gotten the win. We are going to put it behind us and focus on Williamsburg this week. They’ve got some great athletes on that team that can make it very difficult on a defense. We may have our hands full, but we are going to fight as hard as we can. We are going to have to play a very clean game if we want to win.”

Middlesboro basketball standout turned wide receiver Jabari Kyle had a spectacular night for the Jackets, rushing for 272 yards on 19 attempts, totaling five touchdowns on the night. Caleb Bogonko added 94 yards on 13 attempts. Thaisan Sin connected on 4/5 PAT attempts.

Atavius Flanary led the Middlesboro defense with 15 total tackles, including one tackle for a loss. Tyler Kelly added 11 tackles for the Jackets’ defense. Jalil Patterson-Graves, Flanary and Kyle all recovered fumbles, while Kelly forced one. Quarterback Eric Helton completed two passes for 30 yards — both to Kyle.

Middlesboro (1-0) is slated to take on Williamsburg (1-0) in their home opener on Friday night at 7:30 p.m.