GRUNDY CENTER – Grundy Center football doesn’t look like it’s over the hill.

The Spartans marked a milestone with their 40th-consecutive victory, using explosive plays to stay two steps ahead of an aggressive Aplington-Parkersburg outfit for a 35-13 win to open the 2025 season at Spartan Stadium on Friday.

Grundy Center also extended its winning streak at home to 36 games in a row dating back to 2019.

“Being out here is amazing, it’s nostalgic,” Grundy Center senior Devin Hinders said. “Last year was such an amazing year, and I can’t wait to continue it out here with a bunch of my friends for my senior year.”

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On the first play of the fourth quarter, Hinders hauled in a Judd Jirovsky pass and shed an A-P tackler as he used the Grundy Center sideline as a tightrope to reach the end zone to make it 35-7 Grundy Center early in the fourth quarter.

“[Assistant coaches] Nathan Hunt and Josh Rekers were in my ear about that particular play concept most of the night,” Grundy Center head coach Travis Zajac said. “I was going to call something different and they both said, ‘No, call this one,’ and Devin was wide open. Those are the kind of responses you want to see to kind of put things away.”

The touchdown came just three plays after Jirovsky forced a fumble on what was nearly an A-P touchdown, and instead resulted in a Grundy Center touchback as the loose ball rolled out of the back of the end zone.

The Falcons played with tenacity from start to finish under new head coach Jeff Pikna, a 2014 Grundy Center grad, but the Spartans capitalized on similar miscues all night, including a high snap on an A-P punt attempt in the first quarter that resulted in an Eli Wegmann fumble recovery for the Spartans’ first touchdown of the fall.

“It was a haphazard, herky-jerky kind of game,” Zajac said. “But really, it’s the response of the kids when it felt like A-P was starting to build toward something, our kids would really slam the door defensively, or make good plays on offense and score some points.”

Judd Jirovsky finished with 6-of-10 passing for 122 yards with an interception and two touchdowns; Brayden Davie had the other receiving touchdown on a second-quarter score. Pete Lebo led the rushing game with 11 carries for 59 yards and a second-half touchdown where he stiff-armed his way into the end zone for a 16 yard score.

“It’s a great feeling to have a guy back there that I can rely on,” Lebo said of Jirovsky, “I’ve just got to be able to block for him and then just run the ball for the team.”

While some Spartans were stepping up to varsity from frequent second-string reps in continuous-clock games in recent years, it was still a learning experience for most, Zajac said.

“We weren’t as consistent as we’d like to see [on the line of scrimmage], but that gives us all sorts of good things to coach,” Zajac said. “They learned a lot of valuable lessons and got a lot of good film to teach off of and correct and coach and hopefully be better next week.”

A-P quarterback Benny Waller rushed 23 times for 180 yards and Mason Pruisner added 17 carries for 72 yards and a touchdown.

The Falcons dominated time of possession, holding the ball for almost 30 minutes on Friday, but the explosiveness of the Spartan playmakers made for an efficient night of finding the end zone.

“All of those big plays tonight added up for us,” Lebo said. “At the end of the day, that was our movement forward. We were a little rough on defense to start, and once that got going, everything took off from there.”

The Spartans hit the road to Waterloo Columbus next Friday. The Sailors lost to Dyersville Beckman, 49-6, in Week 1.