RAYMOND — Two years ago as a freshman from Vicksburg, Malcolm Butler remembers how shocking it was to see Hinds Community College get pushed around in the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges league.

That’s not the case anymore. After taking a year off, Butler returned to Hinds this fall and won a starting job at cornerback. In his absence, he could only smile at the major upgrade in talent that coach Gene Murphy and his staff has made. The Eagles displayed it by beating an Itawamba club that won five games last year, 44-24, in the season opener last week at Renfroe Stadium.

Hinds (1-0) aims to keep up the good times on Thursday when it hosts East Mississippi (1-0) in a non-division game.

“We have a lot of good players now,” Butler said after the Eagles’ opening win. “It’s a completely

different team from my first year here. We’ve so much more talent and size.”

Murphy has been able to reconnect with the major senior colleges and provide a path to Hinds for those schools’ high profile, non-NCAA qualifiers. Hinds has four players and all had an impact in the win against Itawamba. Wide receiver Quadaris Mireles had signed with Ole Miss, but last Thursday he scored the Eagles’ first touchdown on a 30-yard reverse. He would later catch two key passes in a third quarter drive that helped the Eagles retake the lead at 31-24.

At the other flank was West Virginia placement Quantavius Leslie. The 6-foot-4 freshman out of Hogansville, Ga., caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from Deon Anthony to give Hinds a 17-3 lead early in the second quarter.

Butler knows how good Leslie and Mireles have been. Along with returning sophomore Adam McWilliams led Hinds with three catches for 68 yards. With all of those big targets, Butler said he has his hands full in practice.

“Going up against those guys in practice every day has only made me better,” Butler said.

Defensively, Hinds is more physical. Murphy can rotate eight players along his four-man line, starting with tackle David Washington (6-2, 305), a University of Kentucky placement and defensive end Dontril Hyman (East Carolina).

“No question, we’re better,” Murphy said. “We’re nowhere near where we were when I left, because we are very young. We’ve got 40 freshmen and we played liked that. We played well in the first half, lost it in there to start the second half, but then we came back and responded.”

Hinds outscored Itawamba 20-0 over the game’s final 20 minutes.

Butler did his part, making five solo tackles and broke up three passes. Freshman linebacker and Port Gibson native Mitchell Hoskins, the Vicksburg Post’s 2009 Defensive Player of the Year, had a sensational debut with nine tackles, including a sack.

Hinds will face a big test Thursday against East Mississippi (1-0). The Lions knocked off Gulf Coast 34-30 behind quarterback Bo Wallace. Wallace, a Tennessee native, completed 31 of 48 passes for 405 yards and three touchdowns.