Snapping a 26 year state title drought a season ago via an undefeated championship run came with the loss of six seniors from the main rotation of the Powell Panther basketball team. This year the Panthers are eyeing a defense of that title with some faces new and old to the hardwood.

“At the high school level everybody cycles guys out, just tries to rebuild. When you have a class that was six deep like we did last year, and as talented as they were, a lot of teams probably don’t expect much from us,” coach Mike Heny said. “But our JV team only lost two games last year.”

Leading the way for those returners from a year ago is Alex Jordan, who saw significant playing time as one of the first players off the bench and an occassional starter. The All-Conference selection brings back his 7.5 points per game and 4.7 rebounds per game averages back while stepping into a more leading role this season.

Jordan stands one of a quintet of seniors, along with Dawson Griffin, Evan Whitlock, Keona Wisniewski and Jaxon Hancock, who all return after seeing minutes last year off the bench.

“They played against the best team in the state every day in practice [last year],” Heny said. “There really isn’t any better way to prepare this group I have this year than to compete every day for an entire season at that level, which is what they had to do. So it’s not like we’re starting over and have a bunch of young guys, we have a bunch of guys that competed and had to compete against really good players every day. So we’ll lean on that experience as we go.”

Along with those seniors, Powell also brings back junior Nathan Preator who saw significant playing time the final month of the season, along with a few juniors expecting to be in the mix as well including Taeson Schultz, Landon Hyde and a transfer in Abel Teten from Buffalo.

“That junior class looks really good,” Heny said. “I feel really good about our depth again this year because of that class we have behind them, and we have a chance to maybe be a better shooting team than we were last year. As far as scoring, that’s yet to be seen.”

Over the summer the Panthers had time to mesh together and find a rhythm during camps and summer leagues around the region, something teams the past few years have been unable to do. Many of the Panther basketball team members played baseball.

“That group last year, they played together from third grade on up. So even though they didn’t play a lot in the summer, they had played together so much up until they got to high school that they were just super familiar with each other’s skill sets,” Heny said. “Last summer was a bonus, because every place we went, we had basically all our rotation. So we took some lumps as you might imagine. We played some really good teams, had some really good camps, but we kept getting better. And they kept getting used to where guys needed to be.”

Heny said one difference from the team a year ago will be the size of Hancock (6-foot-5) in the post.

“Trey [Stenerson] was a little bit of a hybrid, as athletic as he was, but Jaxon’s that true rim protector and big guy. So we’ve had to learn how to use him within our offense a little bit, and how to get him the ball at the right time in the right spot,” Heny said.

With this returning bunch of players Heny expects the Panthers will be in the mix once again this season. Some of the toughest competition is expected to be in the 3A Northwest against close foes Lovell and Cody, which moved down a class this season, as well as Worland, while Lander could be the top competition out of the southwest.

In the east some familiar faces expect to be tough, such as the Panther’s state championship opponent in Wheatland, along with usual competitors such as Buffalo and Douglas.

“We’re obviously going to have to take it a little more slowly. Last year, we had an experienced group so we could hit the ground running pretty quickly and that really helped us early in the season,” Heny said. “This year, those guys are going to have to be in those situations and kind of learn as we go. Experience is really the biggest difference at this point. I expect us to compete hard, and if things go our way, we could be one of the last teams standing again this year.”

Starting out the season the Panthers will head down to Fremont County, taking part in the Lander Invite on Thursday-Saturday.

Powell’s first opponent will be Pinedale at 4 p.m. on Thursday, a team that also saw a significant class graduate.

“That’s probably going to be a game where both teams are going to be trying to figure out who their main rotation is and who plays well together,” Heny said. “It may look ugly for a while at times just because of both teams kind of resetting their lineups a little bit, but I feel like we have a group that is well equipped to adapt to pretty much any style, and just hope we go out and play well.”

The Panthers follow that up with a game on Friday at 10 a.m. against Rawlins, and will wrap up with a game at 4 p.m. on Saturday against host Lander.

“We’re not worried about anything else but the next game on our schedule and we’ll go try to compete and make the right adjustments,” Heny said. “If we score enough points and defend at a level that we’re accustomed to, I feel like we’ll have a good shot.”