Riley Stringer put it perfectly.

“When it comes down to it, we all just took care of business,” the Powell High School senior said.

Just five days removed from losing a classmate to a fatal car accident, several PHS wrestlers could be seen Tuesday night with looks that reflected broken spirits.

“We’ve all just suffered a lot of loss over the past five months,” said Stringer, whose father Jim, a Powell High School teacher and four-time state champion football coach, died last summer.

But on a night the Panthers needed an emotional pick-me-up, they turned to the one place where, in the past three years, they haven’t experienced much loss at all — the wrestling mat.

PHS accepted five forfeits from visiting Lovell, but took six more victories by pin and another by technical fall en route to a 77-3 victory at the Panther Gymnasium.

After senior Noah Wozney was awarded a forfeit victory at 106 pounds to start the PHS onslaught, sophomores Chase Smith (113) and Marshal Wittick (120) provided a couple of early bright spots.

“We see so much from the older guys on our team that we just want to step it up and compete at their level,” Wittick said. “We just want to have good matches for our team.”

Smith and Wittick accomplished just that, collecting back-to-back pins that gave PHS a quick 18-0 cushion.

“You just got to have the right mindset and go hard,” Smith added. “It feels pretty good (to get a win) because the older kids always push for the smaller, younger, more inexperienced kids to go hard and I just wanted to do that for them and I did.”

Defending Class 3A state champion Chance Karst (132) followed with a 19-4 tech victory over the Bulldogs’ Jacob Mickelson, and two more pins from Colton Parham (138) and defending state champ Nic Urbach (145) had the blowout in motion.

“I was happy to see the young guys step up and wrestle well, and the veterans continue to wrestle the way they’re supposed to,” said Panthers head coach Nate Urbach. “It was a long break so it was nice to get this dual in before a couple of our bigger tournaments get here.”

Coach Urbach was especially pleased with junior Teagan Cordes, who jumped from 152 to 160 Tuesday to fill a spot. He ended up taking on WyoWrestling.com’s No. 5-ranked Merrill Beck — and pinned him with 52.8 seconds to go in the second period.

“I’m really proud of Teagan,” Urbach said. “That’s a big, big win for him.”

After three straight Lovell forfeits, Lovell finally broke through thanks to some late-match heroics from its 220-pound grappler, Nash Jolley. After PHS’ Zach Easum scored a reversal to tie the bout at five with 38 seconds remaining in the final period, Jolley recovered quickly. He pulled off his own reversal and quickly turned Easum over for a near fall just before time expired to score a quick five points and the 10-5 decision.

But after the Panthers’ lone defeat, Stringer put the exclamation point on the night with a second-round pin of RJ Davila.

PHS will have its hands full Friday and Saturday as it travels to the Bozeman Invitational at Bozeman High School (Mont.). The Panthers will then return home to host Greybull at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a fun next couple of weeks, and it’ll be challenging,” Urbach said. “But the guys are really looking forward to it and they’re ready.”