Young Panthers playing well

The Powell High School freshman girls’ basketball team is off to a great start this season, winning five of the team’s six games prior to the holiday recess. The team features just eight players and two managers.

“We don’t have a large number of girls out this season compared to the 14 or so players in past years,” said freshman team coach Scott McKenzie. “With the small number of girls out this year, we have been able to get a lot of reps out of our drills.”

The Powell freshmen opened the season in Lovell with a 43-40 victory. Jenni Ebersberger led the team with 21 points. Carli Brown added seven, Megan Wagner and Delaney Dent each scored six points and Morgan Kasper rounded out the scoring with three points.

The team followed that contest with a trip to Riverton for a pair of games. The first game was against Green River and ended with Powell holding a 66-9 victory.

“We really emphasize defense in Coach (Luke) Danforth’s program, and the girls stepped up in this game and locked it on,” said McKenzie. “We held them to one free throw in the entire second half.”

Ebersberger again led the team with 20 points in the win. Aimee Kawano added a big game with 16 points. Other scoring included Wagner hitting double figures with 11 points, Bailey Sanders with six points, Kasper with six points, Brown with five points and Makaila Moore with two points.

The second game of the day was against host Riverton. It was a game of spurts by both teams and at the end of regulation, the scoreboard remained knotted at 38-38.

In the overtime period, Riverton jumped out to an early lead and was up by seven points with 48 seconds left. Powell made a run at the end, but fell short by a 45-43 final count.

“This game was played at a high level in my opinion,” said McKenzie. “Both teams competed to the very end and unfortunately, someone had to lose. It was a good early season game for us to learn from.”

Scoring for the game showed Ebersberger with 28 points, Wagner with nine and Brown, Kawano and Kasper with two points each.

Powell bounced back with a 41-17 win over Greybull. Wagner led the way with 13 points. Ebersberger had 10 points, Kasper finished with six, Brown and Dent four each, and Sanders and Moore each dropped in two points.

Mid-month, Powell hosted Burlington for its first home game of the season. Again, solid defense prevailed as the Panthers cruised to a 57-22 win. Ebersberger had 24 points, Kasper had eight points, Brown finished with seven points, Kawano had six points, Sanders and Wagner each finished with four points and Moore and Dent finished with two points as all eight Panthers found the scorebook.

The Panthers wrapped up their pre-holiday schedule with a game against Buffalo. Defense was the order of the day as the teams played to a 22-22 tie through four quarters of regulation.

“I can’t remember ever being in two overtime games before the holiday break,” McKenzie said.

Calling upon its experience from the earlier overtime contest, Powell came away with a 28-24 win.

“This was an aggressive game,” McKenzie said. “I was proud of the girls for holding their own and not backing down. It was a great win to send us into January.”

The team returns to action Jan. 3 with a game against Rocky Mountain High School in Cowley.