“A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.”

Such were the words of Catherine the Great, but they were all too applicable to Friday’s soccer match between the Lady Panthers and the visiting Wranglers of Pinedale, which ended in a 1-1 tie.

With sustained winds out of the West at 30 miles per hour, running parallel with the Powell field, the wind was at one team’s back and in the other’s face.

Any lofted kick would carry a good distance with the wind, giving the team on offense great conditions with which to move the ball downfield and increase the scoring chances.

Lofting a kick against the wind, however, created a virtual boomerang effect, making it near impossible to advance the ball into attack position.

“It was a huge advantage when the wind was helping us,” forward Kayla Atkinson said. “When we went against it, we just had to anticipate where the wind might take it.”

The Powell ladies had the wind with them in the first half of play and it was Atkinson who took advantage of it and put the Panthers on top with a goal in the 26th minute.

The battle then came in the second half with the Lady Wranglers having the wind advantage, and leaving it up to the Powell defense to limit the opportunities.

And while they were able to keep Pinedale from dominating possessions, as the wind had helped the Panther offense do in the first half, pushing it into the attack zone on a consistent basis just wasn’t feasable.

The defense held on as long as it could, but with just 10 minutes remaining, the Wranglers wrangled up a score to knot things up.

Two, 10-minute overtimes followed, with each team having the wind at its’ back once, but the score would stand and mark the second tie between the two teams this season.

“The girls feel pretty confident with how we are playing,” Atkinson said. “Most teams reach a limit and stay that way, but with this young team, I see nothing but improvement every day.”

The boys contest followed and the winds were still a factor, but a factor that Powell took full advantage of, scoring twice in the first 10 minutes, racking up six scores in the first half and coasting to a 7-2 win.

Alex Aguirre got things started with a header off an Owen Dent corner kick in the fifth minute of the match, with Kristian Stenlund heading in another score four minutes later.

T.J. Abraham found the back of the net in the 15th minute and Aguirre picked up his second score in the 19th minute off a corner kick for a 4-0 lead.

A free kick led to Owen Dent setting up Trey Ouellette for a goal and nudging the lead to 5-0.

“At that point we pulled Sean (Wagner) out of goal to play on the field, being senior night,” head coach Travis Rapp said. “T.J. was fouled in the box for a penalty kick and Sean stuck a good ball past the keeper in the 34th minute.”

That made it a 6-0 contest at the half, but the team knew the second half could well be a challenge with Pinedale now having the advantage of the wind.

“We talked about keeping a focused and purposeful attack going into the wind,” Rapp said.

The Wranglers did use the wind to their benefit, scoring 15 minutes into the second half, but Ouellette got that back by keeping the ball on the ground and dribbling through the defense and firing it past the keeper.

With three minutes left to play, Pinedale got on the board once more on a free kick, but that would merely provide for the final margin.

“We played well,” Rapp said. “We showed a hunger for the goal and the ability to go win a ball. We put a good percentage of shots on goal and stayed focused.”

The teams will finish out the regular season on the road this week, traveling to Star Valley Friday and Jackson Hole for matches on Saturday.