A 48-0 blowout of the Jackson Broncs on Friday night secured the Panthers a spot in the first round of the football playoffs.

Jackson and Powell each went three-and-out on their opening possessions of the game.

Powell High School head coach Chanler Buck said he was looking to see how Jackson would line up defensively, because “they showed something different every week.”

“Once we adjusted, kids executed well, and we took off,” Buck said.

And took off the Panthers did.

Powell scored its first touchdown with 2:53 left in the first quarter and its second about two-and-a-half minutes later. At the end of the opening period, Powell led 13-0, having missed the extra point.

In the second quarter, the Panthers wasted little time in getting more points on the board; they added another touchdown with 11:02 remaining in the half. Just a minute-and-a-half later, T.J. Abraham returned a punt 47 yards for a touchdown. PHS would add another score to make it 34-0 at the half.

Mason Olsen opened the second half scoring with a 34-yard TD pass to Zach Easum, with 9:22 on the clock. By the end of the third quarter, the score was 48-0.

The entire fourth quarter was played with a running clock, which kicks in when a team is 45 or more points ahead of their opponent. It means the clock runs continuously and stops only for timeouts, injuries, penalties and touchdowns.

Powell had a total of 19 first downs and 516 yards on offense. Jackson had seven first downs and 301 yards.

On offense, Olsen was the leading rusher with 106 yards. Abraham was second with 97 yards and Josh Wolfe third with 88 yards.

Olsen was 64.2 percent on his passing, completing nine out of 14 passes for a total of 146 yards.

“(It) was really good to get the kids who earned some time on the field an opportunity,” said Buck. “We had some outstanding effort from sophomores on up. I was pleased all the way around.”

On defense, 19 players got defensive points. Brooks Asher led with 22 points, having two assisted tackles and seven unassisted tackles, with two resulting in a loss of yardage.

Next was Abraham with 15 defensive points. He had five assisted tackles, two unassisted tackles and a fumble recovery. Following closely behind, with 13 defensive points, was Paige Gann with six assisted tackles, one pass break up and an interception.

“Nice to get a win over Jackson, but to be able to execute as well as we did and see what progress we made each week is very important going into this next one,” said Buck.

Powell will go head to head against Cody on Friday. The result of that game, plus a few others, will determine what seed PHS gets in the playoffs (see related story on Page 9). Kick off is at 7 p.m. with a tailgate party sponsored by Bank of Powell starting at 6 p.m.