The Panthers began their season last Friday with a rare sub-region game against county rival Whitewater at Panther Stadium. Head coach Chad Phillips and his team was well aware that in their last two meetings, the Wildcats walked off the field with the win.

“All of summer practice was to get ourselves ready to play this game,” Phillips said in the days leading up to the game. “It gives you a little extra motivation to play a rival early. It would’ve been better playing them second so we could prepare ourselves a little more, but we feel prepared.”

The game didn’t quite go as the Panthers planned. The offense sputtered in the first quarter. A lot of bobbled snaps and missed hand offs helped stall an offense that was featuring two freshmen running backs, Rico Frye and Nick Brown.

“It was a lot of pressure on me,” Frye said.” I just had to come out and do whatever it took to help the team win.”

Each team’s opening drives ended with a punt. On Whitewater’s second possession, the Wildcats went for it on fourth down and the Panthers stopped them. They got the ball at their own 30 yard line but fumbled it right back to the Wildcats. That set up Whitewater senior running back Christian Wofford’s first touchdown, a 17-yard run with 5:06 remaining in the first quarter to give the Wildcats a 7-0 lead.

In the second quarter, Whitewater continued to move the ball and Wofford scored again, this time from one yard out, to extend the Wildcat lead to 14-0 with 8:15 left in the second quarter.

Down two touchdowns, the Panthers needed something from their offense to stay in the game. The Panthers still struggled to move the ball and failed on a third-down conversion attempt at their own 46, but a personal foul penalty on Whitewater kept the drive alive.  On the next play, junior quarterback Satchel Goodrich ran 39 yards for a touchdown to cut the Wildcat lead in half with 6:09 left in the second quarter.

It only took the Wildcats 24 seconds to regain their two-touchdown lead when Whitewater quarterback Jay Ashley hit wide receiver Luke Allen for a 57-yard touchdown pass. Whitewater scored once more on an 11-yard run by Ashley to make the score 27-7 at the half.

The Panther offense struggled with its running game in the first half and the defense had trouble stopping Whitewater’s balanced attack of run and pass plays.  “I wasn’t making the right reads on our running plays,” Goodrich said. “Our defense needs to step up. Pretty much everyone needs to step up at this point.”

The Panthers started the game short-handed on defense, with senior defensive back Mitch Pattison suffering a broken arm in a preseason scrimmage against Pike County and junior linebacker Melvin Broomfield and senior safety Luke Schoolcraft suspended for the first half because of a violation of team rules.

The offense looked better to begin the second half, getting to the Wildcat 40-yard line. The drive looked promising until Whitewater corner Ian McIntyre intercepted a Goodrich pass that was intended for junior wide receiver Marcel Ray and took it 36 yards to the Panther 30. Whitewater looked to increase its lead and put the game out of reach, but a defensive stand by the Panthers stopped the Wildcats at the Starr’s Mill five-yard line. However, on the next series the Wildcats sacked Goodrich in the end zone for a safety to push their lead to 29-7.

Phillips decided to put in sophomore quarterback Stone Kasten in the third quarter. Phillips explained that he didn’t want to wear down his junior quarterback in the first game of the season.  “Satchel had to play a lot of defense because of suspensions, so we were trying not to tire him out too much,” Phillips said.

With a new quarterback in, the Panthers looked for something on offense to try to change the momentum. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Kasten threw a pass to junior running back Dion Munnerlyn who ran it 28 yards to the Wildcat 10. Frye ran it in for a touchdown on the next play to cut the Wildcat lead to 36-14 with 11:39 to go.

The Panthers attempted an onside kick and Matt Mullins recovered it. The Panthers then scored on a 31-yard run by Frye, who finished the game with 83 yards on 13 carries and two touchdowns.

“It was amazing,” said Frye, talking about the second touchdown run. “Good job by my linemen giving good blocks through the entire play, and I felt really good about the run. Just wanted to do whatever helped the team.”

The Panthers’ sudden offensive outburst gave them a glimmer of hope, but it wouldn’t last as Whitewater controlled the ball for most of the remaining six minutes and scored on a one-yard pass with 1:27 left to win 43-21.

After the game, Phillips complimented his young players for fighting through to the end.

“We had two 9th grade running backs starting, and they kind of grew up a little,” Phillips said. “We were a little unsettled in the first half but played much better in the second half.”

Kasten, who quarterbacked the junior varsity in 2013, relished getting some varsity playing time. “I was definitely nervous at first, but once we got rolling, it was a lot of fun getting varsity experience,” Kasten said. “I just kept telling my offensive linemen to keep fighting and keep going and they did.”

The Panthers will be looking for their first win when they travel to Tiger Stadium to face Fayette County at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 5.  Fayette County has never defeated the Panthers in Tiger Stadium, including when the Panthers played in that stadium for their  first season and a half before Panther Stadium was completed.

“The coaches are well aware of that,” Phillips said. “The players don’t know it yet, but they will when we play them.”