Weather continued to impact the early season schedule for the Powell Panther girls’ soccer team, canceling the Pinnacle Cup in Worland on Friday and Saturday. Fortunately for the Panthers, a quick scheduling adjustment helped welcome their first scheduled opponent in the tournament, Worland, to Powell.

Powell (0-1) struggled to find the net in its first contest of the year, dropping the match to the Warriors 5-0.

Early on both teams battled, trying to find opportunities on net as the game remained tied for a majority of the first half.

Worland (1-1-1) finally found the net off a strong strike by Rivers Carrell in the 31st minute, giving the Warriors a 1-0 lead.

Just five minutes later, a strong shot was deflected by Panther keeper Jaedyn Hampton and tapped in off the rebound by Emma Hunt to make it 2-0 heading into halftime.

“Jaedyn stepped up to play keeper and did well for her first game,” coach Danny Agee said. “I am grateful that she is willing to do this for us, as keeper is not usually high on everyone’s favorite position list. She will only get better with time, and like I always say, it’s never the keeper’s fault. We should never let them get to our goal and that starts with forwards all the way back.”

Powell continued to find attacking opportunities in the second half, building up through different passing attacks to find an opportunity behind the back line of the Warriors.

Unfortunately for the Panthers, they were unable to find a quality strike to find the back of the net.

“I thought the ladies built a fairly good attack throughout the game and a lack of scoring was caused more by simply being off in our timing,” Agee said. “This was our first game together and there will always be little things that have to be sorted out under pressure in order to be successful. Winning is the final piece of a successful equation and we just had a few things that need to be adjusted.”

Worland got its third goal of the game on a Peyton Erlenbaugh kick in the 52nd minute, while Carrell and Hunt each got their second goal in the final five minutes to make the final score 5-0.

Agee knows that with a young core there will be growing pains, as the Panthers seek out a state tournament berth for the first time since 2017.

“The main lesson that I want the ladies to learn throughout this season and those to come is that we do everything as a team,” Agee said. “Any noticeable breakdown in the back was a result of a turnover somewhere else on the field and no goal was scored without the team building together to get into dangerous areas around the other team’s goal.”

SCHEDULE CHANGE

Powell was set to head down to Pinedale, Lyman and Mountain View this weekend, but a schedule change has flipped the location of the early season conference contests.

Mountain View (0-1) is scheduled to come to Powell on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. while Lyman (0-0) is scheduled to play Friday at 10 a.m.

“I have told the ladies that development is not an overnight thing and that all we are doing is raising the bar of performance a little bit each time,” Agee said. “We played some good soccer at many moments throughout this first game and now we increase those moments a little more for Mountain View on Thursday and then a little higher on Friday against Lyman.”

There will be no junior varsity contests this weekend.

With the schedule change Powell will now head to Lyman on May 4, Mountain View on May 5, and the rescheduled Pinedale game has been rescheduled once again to May 6.