Photo by Aaron Crutchfield - Running back Nick Tenhaeff splits a pair of defenders during the Greyhounds’ 40-21 win over Clovis on Friday. Tenhaeff rushed for 163 yards and had another 44 receiving as the team improved to 1-0, winning its third straight season opener.

On the first play of the Atascadero High School varsity football team’s game against Clovis on Friday at Lamonica Stadium, the Greyhounds attempted a pass.

Although it fell incomplete, it was still proof that offensively, this is a different Atascadero team than last year’s run-heavy version. Quarterback Brad Smet completed a 23-yard pass to Alex Wolf and a 25-yarder to Trevor Holloway in the opening drive of the game, which culminated in Nathan Stein’s 37-yard field goal.

The Greyhounds went on to beat Clovis by a score of 40-21 and Smet passed for 154 yards.

That’s not to say the Hounds abandoned the run — Nick Tenhaeff had 163 of the team’s 199 rushing yards.

“I didn’t expect for us to pass as much, but we put in a lot of open stuff and it ended up working out,” Smet said. “The pass opened up the run at the beginning, and then we started running the ball and came back to the pass at the end.”

All of it was made possible by the play of the new offensive line, which was a bit of an unknown quantity after taking a heavy hit from graduation last year.

“The offensive line was kind of the question mark coming in with a lot of inexperienced guys, but they really stepped up,” said Tenhaeff, who regularly had holes open up for him to dart through for long runs, including touchdown carries of 45, 30 and 23 yards.

“They came together great,” Smet said of the line. “I had no pressure. The only time I had any pressure was on a bootleg and that was on me.”

The Hounds got excellent field position for their second possession of the game after Tucker Thompson returned a Clovis punt to the 24-yard line. Smet passed to Conner Allen for 14 yards, Holloway ran for four, Smet ran for two and Tenhaeff punched it in from one yard out with 4:04 left in the first quarter. Stein’s extra-point kick put the Hounds up 10-0.

But two big plays for Clovis in the second quarter put the Cougars up 14-10 with 2:43 left in the second quarter. But Atascadero responded quickly, with Tenhaeff breaking free for a 45-yard touchdown run with 1:55 left in the half. On the extra-point try, the snap was bad, but Thompson quickly recovered, got up and passed the ball to Allen for the two-point conversion and an 18-14 lead, which remained the score at halftime.

Evan Hicks stopped the first two Clovis drives of the second half with interceptions, the second of which he returned all the way to the one-yard line. Tenhaeff scored one play later to put the Hounds up 24-14 with 8:21 left in the third quarter, although the extra-point kick was no good.

Tenhaeff scored another touchdown, this one from 23 yards out, with 3:58 left in the fourth quarter for a 30-14 lead, although that extra point was also no good.

Then, early in the fourth quarter, Smet completed a short pass to Tenhaeff, which he turned into a 30-yard touchdown with 10:35 left in the game. Stein’s extra-point kick was good to put the score at 37-14.

The Cougars scored a touchdown on a 44-yard pass with 10:05 left in the game to bring the score to 37-21, but Stein drilled a 38-yard field goal with 6:18 left in the game to finish the scoring at 40-21.

“We’ve still got a long ways to go,” said Atascadero coach Vic Cooper. “It’s good to get this one out of the way. We made a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball, but the nice thing is there’s things we can do, watch film and correct. So hopefully we’ll stay to the old football axiom that you always make your biggest improvement between week one and week two.”

The Hounds will see how improved they are on Friday, Sept 12 at 7:30 p.m. against St. Bonaventure. The Seraphs won their Division III bowl game to be crowned California state champions last year, and enter with a 1-0 record after beating Santa Margarita of Rancho Santa Margarita 35-14.