SKOWHEGAN — Few teams were able to take down the Skowhegan River Hawks last season en route to their first state championship in 44 years.

The Windham Eagles, though, were one of them — and facing off against a far less experienced Skowhegan as a new season kicked off, they did it more emphatically.

Windham claimed a 35-0 victory over Skowhegan on Friday in a cross-class showdown at Reginald Clark Memorial Field. Marcus Tillery ran for 198 yards on 15 carries for the Eagles, who dominated in the trenches and showed off their blazing speed as miscues mounted for the River Hawks.

“We did a lot of things good, but we just had too many mental mistakes,” said first-year Skowhegan head coach Brad Cyr. “When you have a bunch of those penalties and mental errors that start to stack up, it costs you. We did that early, we fell behind, and we couldn’t catch back up.”

After penalties marred Skowhegan’s opening possession, the River Hawks (0-1) stuffed a Windham drive inside the 30 to force a turnover on downs. Yet the Eagles immediately forced another Skowhegan punt, which Tobias Perkins took 40 yards to the end zone to put the visitors up 7-0 with 4:30 left in the opening quarter.

“I think the turning point was that play by Tobias,” Tillery said. “Right after that, we just started playing fired up, man. We were moving out there, we were playing physical, and when you have that kind of energy, that’s the outcome.”

Windham showed that physicality in immediately forcing a Skowhegan three-and-out, after which Tillery scampered 71 yards down the sideline to make it 14-0. He then scored from 5 yards out on the opening play of the second quarter and from 54 with 2:47 remaining in the half as the Eagles (1-0) went into the locker room up 28-0.

A 22-yard touchdown pass from Garrett Winslow to Adrian Moody less than three minutes into the second half then put the game in running time. Skowhegan drove all the way down to the Windham 2 on the following drive, but the Eagles held before simply melting the clock in the fourth quarter.

“We definitely had a lot of positives, and one of them was that nice second half,” Cyr said. “We showed we could move the ball a bit, and we were physical like we wanted to be. I didn’t think we played poorly; we’ve just got to clean it up. Windham is a heck of a team that takes advantage of those mistakes, so hats off to them.”

In addition to Tillery’s rushing effort, Ezra Foster also had a strong game for Windham as he recorded an interception on defense and caught three passes for 42 yards. Ekhayo Fairley caught three passes for 37 yards for Skowhegan, which ran for 116 yards on 31 carries as a team.

Although Skowhegan was able to hold its own in the trenches at times against Windham, the Eagles ultimately outdueled the River Hawks along the lines. That paved the way for Foster, Moody and Tillery to get open space on offense, and on defense, the visitors shut down Skowhegan’s power game.

“They do a nice job running a power and running inside stuff, and they were able to gouge us a little bit, so we had to adjust,” said Windham head coach Matt Perkins. “They had (the physical) edge on us early — we had kids standing up — but I’m proud of the way our kids adjusted, got lower and took care of business.”

The River Hawks, whose only loss to a Class B team all season last year came in a 14-7 defeat to Windham in Week 8, returns next to none of the players who ended the team’s long Gold Ball drought. From the skill positions to all along the line, few faces on this Skowhegan team are recognizable.

That inexperience, Cyr said, played a huge factor in Friday night’s result. Dealing with the kind of roster turnover Skowhegan has experienced takes time, something of which the team’s new head coach is well aware as the team looks ahead to its first league contest against Cony next week.

“We’ve got a pile of sophomores out there that are getting their first taste of varsity, and we know that learning curve is going to be steep,” Cyr said. “We’re hoping they’re going to catch up on it, but the only way to do that is to go out there and play, and sometimes, you’ve got to take a few licks along the way.”

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