{gallery}10_06_09/football{/gallery}Auston Carter gets hauled down by a pair of Star Valley defenders on Friday afternoon. Carter finished as Powell's leading ball carrier with 61 yards as the Panthers suffered their first loss of the regular season, 29-3. Powell hosts Worland this Friday. Tribune photo by Randal Horobik Unranked Braves blindside Powell, 29-3Murphy's Law proclaims that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. It also pretty much sums up the afternoon the Powell Panther football team had in Afton last Friday. “All those things that I've praised the last three weeks —we didn't do any of them tonight,” Powell head coach Jim Stringer said following his team's 29-3 defeat. “I'm at a total loss. I'm shocked that we'd allow ourselves to get beat up like we did today.”

After two weeks of having their way along the line of scrimmage, the Panthers were on the receiving end of matters. Powell struggled to gain yardage on the ground against Star Valley for much of Friday night.

The Braves made the most of big play opportunities on Friday. A 48-yard pass completion in the first quarter helped set Star Valley up for a short touchdown run and the first score of the game. It also marked the first first-quarter points surrendered all season by the Panthers.

After struggling to get much going in the first period, Powell's offense got on track. The Panthers pieced together a 16-play drive that ate more than eight minutes off the clock in the second quarter.

Sophomore quarterback Keithen Schwahn connected on five of his six passing attempts on the drive as Powell marched from its own 30 to inside the Braves' 10. The drive would stall in the red zone, however, forcing the Panthers to settle for a 23-yard field goal off the toe of Drayson Bratt.

Powell's jubilation lasted all of 18 seconds. Star Valley returned the ensuing kickoff to the 40, then broke its first rushing play 60 yards for a touchdown, pushing its lead to 12-3.

The big plays weren't done. The Braves shot in to sack Schwahn on the final play of the first half, stripping the football in the process. The fumble was scooped up by one of the Braves' defensive linemen, who rumbled 15 yards for the score. The lightning bolt lifted Star Valley to a 19-3 lead at intermission.

Star Valley's defense came up big in the second half as well. The Braves brought a premature end to Powell's opening drive by forcing a fumble to halt a Panther drive that appeared to hold promise inside the Braves' 25.

Minutes later, after the Braves were guilty of turning the ball over at the Powell 45, Star Valley stepped in front of a Schwahn pass and returned the pick 52 yards for the school's second defensive touchdown of the day.

The Braves added a 42-yard field goal with 8:30 to play to give the game its final margin.

Powell made two additional trips into Braves territory in the second half, but came away empty-handed on both opportunities. A late third-quarter possession was stopped at the Star Valley 15 after the Braves held the Panthers to no yardage after the team achieved a second-and-2 situation. Powell also reached the Star Valley 25 on its final drive of the game, but suffered back-to-back sacks followed by a pair of pass incompletions to extinguish the threat.

“Even when we'd do stuff well, we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Stringer. “We didn't allow ourselves to get anything going. We didn't control the line of scrimmage. We didn't sustain our blocks and Star Valley was just out there flying to the football.”

In an ironic twist, the Panthers ran more than twice as many offensive plays as Star Valley, including a 53-17 differential over the final three quarters, and produced more than 100 yards of offense more than the Braves in the contest. On a night where Star Valley's defense accounted for a pair of touchdowns, it simply wasn't enough.

Auston Carter finished with 61 yards on seven carries to lead the Panthers. Billy Harshman, the Panthers' leading carrier through the first half of the season, was corralled for just 56 yards on 16 totes of the football.

Schwahn added 120 yards through the air as he completed 14 of his 28 passing attempts with two interceptions.

The loss drops Powell to 4-1 for the season and to a 1-1 mark in conference play. The Panthers host Worland on Friday night.