Big second half keys Powell past Star Valley

Junior Ethan Landers scored twice and senior Cody Wichman added a penalty kick goal in the closing minutes as the Powell Panthers used a huge second half to storm past No. 5 Star Valley by a 3-0 final count on Saturday afternoon at Trapper West.

The victory came just 24 hours after Powell found itself on the short side of an identical 3-0 score against No. 2 Jackson.

“We played a great second half,” said Panther coach Travis Rapp following Saturday’s victory. “We’d noticed in the first half that they were playing a 4-3-3 and we really made a point at halftime of trying to target it. Their extra forward gave us a little problem early on, but the kids did a great job of communicating and we handled it better as the game went on.”

Landers exploited the hole in Star Valley’s scheme to perfection. Twice the junior timed delayed runs down the center of the field to get inside the Braves’ defense and receive crossing passes from the right wing. On both occasions, he was able to deposit the ball inside the near post in front of a sprawling Braves keeper.

“Ethan kind of illustrates the problem we have on the team this year,” Rapp said. “He’s a kid that got a few extra minutes today because we had some guys missing and he winds up scoring two goals. We’ve got a lot of younger players that are showing they’re capable of playing on varsity, but it’s getting to be a challenge finding enough extra minutes to go around for all of them.”

The Panthers tacked on their final goal late in the contest. Attacking once more from the right wing, Powell was the beneficiary of an elbow thrown by one of the Braves defenders in the goal box. Powell tagged Wichman to take the penalty kick and the senior caught Star Valley’s keeper leaning the wrong way for an easy conversion.

Freshman Heston Swenson recorded his second shutout of a ranked opponent this season, playing the full 80 minutes in goal for the Panthers. The clean sheet was due in part to a diving second-half sprawl that saw the freshman lay out to his right to smother a ball destined for the bottom corner of goal.

The win helped the Panthers salvage a split from the week’s action. On Friday, Powell fell 3-0 in poor weather conditions to Jackson.

With the game kicking off almost an hour behind schedule due to a lightning delay during the girls’ game, the Panthers never appeared in synch during the contest. The Panthers’ attack was stymied by Jackson’s back line throughout much of the first half while Jackson was able to apply pressure repeatedly with deep runs at the goal.

The Broncs cracked the scoreboard late in the first half, then capitalized seven minutes into the second half when Powell made the mistake of giving away possession of the ball deep in its defensive zone. The Broncs added a breakaway goal that left Swenson on an island one-on-one with roughly 13 minutes remaining.

“I don’t think we played our best that game,” Rapp said. “Jackson’s an excellent team, but I don’t think we performed as well as we’re capable of doing in that game.”

Despite the loss, the Panthers’ coach was pleased with the split of games.

“When I looked at the schedule and saw this weekend, I was really just hoping to get a split of these games,” Rapp said. “We just wanted to use them as preparation for this week, because we have the two biggest games of the year coming up.”

The first of those games comes today (Tuesday) with the Panthers hosting No. 3 Worland in a Northwest quadrant game that will also serve as senior night for the team. Powell travels to Cody on Saturday to close out quadrant play with a game against the Broncs.

A sweep of the week’s games would position Powell well for a possible quadrant title and automatic seeding into the Class 3A state tournament field.