GROVE CITY — It's a warm summer evening and several members of the Grove City High football team congregate at Forker Field.

The receivers, namely Logan Lutz and A.J. Turner, run pass patterns while quarterback Kameron Patterson spins the football in their direction.

They do this almost every evening, trying to give themselves an edge for the coming season and put a disappointing 1-9 campaign out of their memories.

“For the past couple of years, we've had a lot of pent-up aggression because things weren't going our way,” Turner said. “We've been really trying to take no prisoners. We knew in our hearts we could be this good.

“So, it's nice to see that all our hard work we put in in the offseason is paying off.”

It is indeed paying off.

Big time.

Patterson, Lutz and Turner are putting up prodigious numbers in the passing game for Grove City, which is off to a 5-0 start for the first time since 2011 heading into a rivalry game Friday against Slippery Rock.

They are video game numbers.

Patterson, a 6-foot-3 senior, has completed 65-of-86 passes (a gaudy 75.6 percent) for 1,157 yards and 18 touchdowns already this season.

He's thrown just one interception.

Turner's numbers are just as eye-popping. The 6-1, 205-pound senior tight end has caught 17 passes for 512 yards and eight TDs.

Lutz, a 6-foot, 160-pound sophomore also has 17 receptions for 369 yards and six scores.

It has even caught Patterson a bit by surprise.

“I knew we were going to be up there, but I didn't think we'd be putting the numbers up that we have,” he said.

There have been many reasons for the offensive explosion by the Eagles, who have scored 246 points — 121 in the last two weeks — in five games after only scoring 148 points last year.

“Really, it's just been trusting our routes and Kameron trusting his reads and the linemen doing their job up front,” Turner said.

Patterson said the running game has been the biggest component of why Grove City is having such success in the passing game.

“Teams have to defend both the pass and the run, where the last two years, they didn't have to worry about the run because we were averaging two yards a carry,” Patterson said. “It makes things easier on me.”

There may be an even more basic reason for the Eagles' success.

Grove City coach Sam Mowrey and his staff went back to the tape of the last two seasons and picked out the things the Eagles did well on offense and pared the rest.

“The biggest thing was we committed to the things that we do well. We actually cut a lot of things out of our playbook,” Mowrey said. “It really helped in our practices because the 10 minutes we may have in the past spent on something else, we spent on perfecting the things we did well.”

Patterson has done a great many things well in his career.

A third-year starter, Patterson has thrown for a school-record 4,367 yards and 50 touchdowns.

He's taken that to a different level this season.

“He has confidence in what he's doing and belief in what we're doing as an offense and a program,” Mowrey said. “Just those years developing as a high school kid. He's put on 10 pounds over the summer and is physically bigger. Mentally, he's confident. He knows he has guys around him who can make plays.”

Few have made more plays than Turner, who scored six touchdowns against Conneaut.

He's the leader in the Butler Eagle Scoring Trophy race with 72 points.

“A.J. has this explosion that no one else on the team has,” Mowrey said. “You watch him, he's just at a different level than everyone else right now. He's catching five-yard passes and turning them into 70-yard touchdowns.”

Turner is a perfect complement to Lutz, who has shown a knack of getting open — and making the difficult catch when he's not.

The son of Slippery Rock University head football coach Shawn Lutz, Logan's strength is his knowledge of the game.

“My dad taught me a lot,” Lutz said. “I'm not the fastest guy, but I just try to get to the right spot. There are times when I don't think I'm open, but, somehow, (Patterson) gets me the ball.”

Lutz and Turner have earned Patterson's trust.

“I trust them a lot because, in my opinion, those are two of the hardest workers on the team,” Patterson said. “They both know the game inside and out.”

And the Eagles are still playing with a rather large chip under their shoulder pads each Friday night.

“The whole proving everyone wrong has helped us,” Patterson said. “We were a young team — not that that's an excuse not to win — and no one gave us a chance to win this year. That just added fuel to the fire.”