A tougher than expected home opener saw the Powell High School boys’ basketball team pull away late against 2A Rocky Mountain 52-36 on Thursday night.

POWELL 52, ROCKY MOUNTAIN 36

Neither team scored early, as the Panthers (7-0) trailed 1-0 for several minutes before finally getting on the board against the Grizz (5-5).

Powell scored but continued to trail 5-4, leading to an early timeout from coach Mike Heny with 3:38 remaining in the first quarter.

The Panthers finally found their scoring touch, and pushed ahead for a 14-7 lead to end the first quarter behind eight points by Kason Sherman and six points from Taeson Schultz.

Fouls started becoming an issue for the Panthers in the second quarter and throughout the game, but a Nathan Preator 3-pointer gave Powell a 17-7 lead just 30 seconds into the frame.

“Foul trouble is always a tough obstacle in a game situation. I really like how tenacious we were on the defensive end, but unfortunately that ended up with us getting a few kids in foul trouble,” coach Mike Heny said. “Some of our foul trouble was due to being out of position on the ball screens and handoffs as well as when we are guarding a bigger post player. We will need to continue to work on how we want to guard those in order to impact the opponent’s ability to execute their offense and for us to use our team speed to our advantage.”

Despite building that advantage, Powell’s scoring was limited to five the remainder of the quarter, as poor shooting saw Powell take a slim 22-20 lead into the locker room.

Powell came out stronger in the second half, building a 31-22 lead midway through, as Schultz started to heat up and made it 34-24 with 2:48 remaining and forced a Rocky timeout.

The Grizz cut into the lead, but a Landon Hyde 3-pointer kept it out of reach as Powell led 37-29 heading into the fourth quarter.

Early on in the final frame the Panthers pushed it to double-digits again, but couldn’t fully pull away from the visitors.

Hyde’s 3-pointer made it a 44-34 game just past the midway point, as Powell maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the game and pulled away for a 52-36 win.

“Every game presents unique challenges and it was nice to see the kids keep battling even though we weren’t at our best. Rocky’s length and their zone created some issues for us coming off the long break and we certainly didn’t shoot the ball as well as we are capable of,” Heny said. “There will be other games like that throughout the course of the season so I was proud of the kids for finding a way to win and make enough plays for us to pull away in the second half.”

Schultz led with 16 points as Preator added 11 as the other Panther in double figures.

Brady Harvey led with eight rebounds, seven of those offensive, along with two blocks, while Caden Nelson led with five assists and six steals.

“I have faith in our bench, and Kason and Brady do a great job of providing what we need whether we are in foul trouble or just keeping everyone fresh. I hope to be able to go a little deeper into the bench as we move forward and especially this weekend when we have four games in two days,” Heny said.

BIG HORN BASIN CLASSIC

The Panther boys hit the road for a couple of weeks before returning home, starting with the Big Horn Basin Classic this weekend.

A change to this year’s tournament will be the removal of the championship game, as the champion will be determined by overall record as well as several tiebreakers over four games.

The first game for the Panthers on Friday will be at noon in Worland against 2A Greybull (6-4), before the remaining three games will be in Thermopolis.

Powell takes on 1A Burlington (7-3 overall, 1-1 1A Northwest) at 6 p.m. Friday before taking on 2A Thermopolis (5-3) at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday and then a rematch with the Grizz at 12:30 p.m.

“We just want to keep improving and working to develop the consistency we need to give us a chance to win on any given night,” Heny said. “There are a lot of things in all three phases that we can do better and we’ll look to identify those areas this week in practice and fine tune what we need to do against zone defenses in order to improve on what we struggled with against Rocky.”

These will be some of the final nonconference games of the season before the Panthers begin conference play next week.

POWELL 52, ROCKY MOUNTAIN 36

Total rebounds then offensive rebounds in ()

Points — Taeson Schultz 16, Nathan Preator 11, Landon Hyde 8, Kason Sherman 8, Caden Nelson 7, Abel Teten 2

Rebounds — Brady Harvey 8 (7), Caden Nelson 5 (1), Nathan Preator 4 (1), Landon Hyde 4, Taeson Schultz 3, Kason Sherman 3, Abel Teten 1, Eli Dallman 1

Assists — Caden Nelson 5, Taeson Schultz 4, Landon Hyde 3, Brady Harvey 2, Kason Sherman 2, Nathan Preator 1

Steals — Caden Nelson 6, Taeson Schultz 4, Nathan Preator 3, Landon Hyde 2

Blocks — Brady Harvey 2, Landon Hyde 1, Abel Teten 1, Kason Sherman 1, Eli Dallman 1