It’s still early in the season, but East Central coach Ken Karcher has to feel good about the direction of this year’s Warriors.

East Central grabbed a 34-28 win over Itawamba Community College last Thursday in Fulton to upset the No. 14 ranked Indians. The win comes a week after East Central let a late lead slip against No. 6 Northwest Mississippi in what amounted to a four-point loss.

“I think with any team, you want to try to win any game, and we had a chance to do both early in the year, and they’re both non-conference opponents and they both ranked in the top 15,” Karcher said. “Any time you get a win it’s good, no matter how you get it. It was good to get one on the road… and hopefully, we’ll build off of that coming into this week.”

East Central (1-1) built an early 20-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Warriors got a special teams touchdown when William Morgan blocked an Itawamba punt that was recovered in the end zone. Warriors quarterback Mario Asagunia threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Torin Hamilton, and later in the period he rifled a 2-yard touchdown throw to Depodary Coburn.

Asagunia found Kevontaye Caston for a 17-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter, and he added a 33-yard touchdown throw to Jaylen Zachery early in the fourth quarter.

“We made some big plays with special teams early — we blocked two punts the first two times and scored on both, so that put us up 14-0 and gave us some momentum,” Karcher said. “And then I thought we really had the game in our favor going in at the half, and then we came out in the second half. They took it to us a little bit and we had some things go wrong, and the next thing you know it was a tight ballgame, and we were able to hold on, which it was good to see (from) our team. The week before we had the scenario and we ended up on the losing end. So we came up this week and got on the winning end, so that was good.”

Asagunia was 14 of 34 for 162 yards and four touchdowns with an interception. James Smith III had a game-high 123 yards on 31 carries, and former Lamar School standout J.T. McClelland tallied 32 yards on six carries. 

Zachery finished with 87 yards receiving and a touchdown on five catches.

East Central hosts Southwest Mississippi (1-1) Thursday for its home opener. 

“I think they’re very excited to come home and get off the road and to get to play in front of our fans, and then to be able to go out and have our first conference game and see how we flow against Southwest,” Karcher said.