A bounce here, a bounce there, and a potential 2-1 weekend turned into a winless start for Powell High School boys’ basketball team.

The Panthers dropped two nail-biters sandwiched between a blowout loss during the East/West Classic in Cody Friday and Saturday.

Powell opened with a 47-44 loss to Newcastle on Friday, fell 52-31 to No. 5 Wheatland Saturday morning and was edged 59-57 by Rawlins on Saturday night.

It was a rough start in the standings for the Panthers, but head coach Chase Kistler said there was plenty to inspire hope for the rest of the long season.

“It’s not frustrating because we have a young team,” Kistler said. “It kind of actually got us motivated a little bit, answered some questions of, we’re good enough to compete, now let’s go find some ways to win.”

One of the first steps to victory will be taking care of the ball. The Panthers gave Newcastle and Rawlins extra possessions that helped their opponents come out on top.

“Our achilles heel this weekend was turnovers,” Kistler said. “Both (close) games we had a lot of turnovers, so did they, but I think with ours it just proved to be more costly to us.”

Senior Kristian Stenlund led the Panthers with 35 points over the three games. His 15 against Rawlins was a game-high, and his nine against Wheatland tied for the team-high with senior Kaden Moore, who scored 14 against Rawlins.

Powell’s offense is perimeter oriented, and Kistler said he’d like to see his guards try to finish at the basket instead of settling for so many jump shots.

“We need to find our identity when it comes to offense. We need to be more aggressive,” Kistler said. “We have some players who prefer to stay on the wing, but we need to be more aggressive and not settle for the long shots.”

Junior T.J. Abraham scored 12 against Rawlins and seven against the Dogies, while freshman Carson Heinen paced the Panthers with 12 points in his first varsity game against them. Heinen had eight points in both Saturday contests.

The offense wasn’t always clicking, but the defense was often there to make up for the lack of scoring.

“It’s going to have to be. We’re going to have to come out and play both ends of the court full-court press,” Kistler said. “It’s the way those kids play. They take pride in playing defense, playing hard for four quarters, wearing people down and causing them to make mistakes.”

Powell forced a pair of 10-second violations and a couple turnovers late against Newcastle.

“The hustle was there, the defensive intensity was there, because we played some pretty good offensive teams, and we played them well.”

With the score tied at 44-44, Newcastle scored at the basket with just less than four seconds to play. Kistler’s call for a timeout wasn’t granted until 0.5 seconds (later adjusted to 1.4), but a technical foul on Stenlund gave Newcastle two free throws and possession, effectively icing the game.

Powell got a last chance to tie the game or take the lead against the Outlaws, but Abraham’s pull-up jumper in the lane missed and Rawlins came down with the rebound.

While the overall rebounding numbers favored the Panthers, Kistler said they struggled on the offensive glass — a product of taking so many outside shots.

“We got more guards that are sitting around the perimeter that got to be willing to crash in there,” Kistler said. “As we get into it, we’ve got different offenses that we can run so that these guys can all be in better position. We’ll get it figured out.”

The Panthers head to Buffalo for their final game of 2015 at 6 p.m. on Friday. 

The Bison are 3-0 after three double-digit wins in Cody over the weekend. Buffalo won 49-39 over Pinedale, 58-48 over Jackson and 65-35 over host Cody.

“I’ve watched them a few times,” Kistler said. “They’re a very deep team. They have a lot of subs, they’re very athletic, they’re tall. They’ve got quite a few returners back.”