Powell drops games to Worland, Cody

For 79 minutes, the Powell Panthers and Worland Warriors played to a scoreless draw last Thursday. It was those other 60 seconds that will haunt the Panthers and head coach Brett Hanlin for a while.

The Warriors scored a pair of goals just seconds apart to take a 2-0 victory from the Panthers in Worland. Powell also fell 6-1 in a home game against top-ranked Cody.

The damaging portion of Thursday’s game came just before intermission. The Panthers were whistled for a delayed penalty in the box while defending against a Worland attack. Worland was able to convert the penalty shot, beating Powell goalkeeper Sierra Baker low and to her right for the game’s first goal.

Moments later, the Panthers gave the ball away shortly after play resumed, leading to a two-on-one opportunity for the Warriors, which the host school was able to convert.

Just like that, what had been a scoreless first half was transformed into a comfortable 2-0 margin for Worland at halftime.

The Panthers had dodged multiple bullets leading up to the Warriors’ outburst. Three times in the first half Worland managed to work the ball deep into the Panthers’ 18-yard box for point-blank shot attempts on the Panthers’ goal. Two of those shots sailed high while Baker proved up to the challenge of stopping the third.

The Panthers shored up their back rank to limit Worland’s scoring looks over the final 40 minutes. Scoring chances for Powell remained few and far between in the second half, however.

Those offensive chances picked up Saturday as the Panthers hosted Cody in a meeting between the two Park County schools. Time and again, Powell was able to feed the ball forward to pressure the Fillies’ defense.

Despite producing a season-high in shot attempts, the Panthers were able to get the ball into net just once. Sophomore Shelby Nicholson took a long ball down the right hash, cut inside her Cody defender and served a ball with her left foot into the goal for the Panthers’ lone goal in the 6-1 loss.

“Most kids are right footed and can’t use their left at this level,” said Hanlin. “Shelby actually has a very strong left foot and she was able to put the ball on net for us and get a goal.”

Unfortunately for the Panthers, that score didn’t come until Cody had amassed a trifecta of first-half goals. The Fillies added a score early in the second half and the 4-1 margin remained on the scoreboard until that latter stages of the game.

Cody tacked on a pair of late scores to inflate the game’s final margin.

“Offensively, we looked a lot better today,” said Hanlin. “We worked all Friday on our offense and what we want to do with the ball, where we want to make runs and all of that. Even though we only scored one goal, it was nice to see the kids applying what we worked on in practice and getting opportunities from that.”

The losses drop the Panther girls to 0-4 overall this season. Powell is now 0-2 in Northwest quadrant play and facing a steep uphill struggle to try avoiding a state tournament play-in game in May.

The Panthers take this week off before returning to action April 13-14 with home games against Jackson and Star Valley.

“It doesn’t get any easier for us,” Hanlin said. “There are a lot of good teams on this half of the state.”