During the early stages of Thursday’s game against Shenandoah, Panther Valley was tip-toeing around.

It led to a lot of stubbed toes.

That’s because the Panthers played give-away, and failed to execute during the opening half.

But like Mount Etna, Panther Valley exploded in the second half.

Boom!

Just like that, the Panthers put four second-half touchdowns on the board and cruised to their most impressive win in years, 33-8.

Riding the legs of superb athlete Mike Pascoe, the Panthers unleashed ground warfare, racking up 343 yards.

Pascoe was at the head of the attack, grinding out 195 yards on 20 carries and hitting paydirt once. He also fired two touchdown passes - one to Mergim Bushati for 10 yards, and another for 50 yards to Trey McAndrew.

While Pascoe was in charge, he was far from a one-man show. Brennan Kunkel tacked on 60 rushing yards and helped to cap off a nine-play, 74-yard scoring march when he plunged in for a 1-yard touchdown. Austin “The Moose” Hadley added 38 yards on the ground and got into the scoring act as well with a 4-yard run.

“We controlled the box,” Panther Valley coach Mark Lavine said. “We’re not an explosive offense. We’re kind of a grind it out team, and we did that well tonight.”

The Panthers did exactly that to open the game as they pounded away - attempting nary a pass during the first 11 plays before Pascoe found Bushati free in the corner of the end zone for a 6-0 lead at the 2:45 mark of the opening quarter. Pascoe had runs of 24 and 17 yards as part of the drive.

The Panthers came up empty on a drive that ended deep in Blue Devil territory on their second series of the game, and then fumbled the ball away inside the Shenandoah 10-yard line the next time they had it.

“We had the opportunity to put at least two more scores on the board, but we didn’t (sustain) our drives,” Lavine said about an opening half that the Panthers controlled, but led just 6-0.

Ah, but the second half was a different story for the Panthers - and a good one at that.

On its first possession to open the half, Panther Valley was crunching away yards and roaring down the field on a picture-perfect 76-yard drive. Feature back Hadley, the 6-2, 230-pound senior, had four touches on the drive and polished off the last one for a touchdown. Brady Jones helped to light the fuse when he dashed 11 yards to open the drive before Hadley powered his way for six and seven yards on two straight carries. Then Pascoe started to deliver the hammer with runs of 11, 25, four and two, setting the stage of Hadley’s final two carries and a score.

“We keep saying we have to have someone besides Michael (Pascoe),” said Lavine. “We saw some things that we thought might work because Shenandoah had been doing a nice job inside on us with their two tackles.”

That adjustment by the Panthers led to Hadley and Jones being more involved in the offense during the drive.

Panther Valley’s defense gave the offense a short field to work on during ts next series, forcing Shenandoah to punt from deep in its end of the field.

Starting from the Blue Devil 47 yardline, it took just a few plays for the Panthers to score as Pascoe found an opening and raced 39 yards to the end zone to make it 19-0.

PV’s Bushati set the tables for the next score, pilfering a Ben Dempster pass. On the very next play, McAndrew was free on the sideline and Pascoe hit him for an uncontested 50-yard TD pass.

“Pascoe is not only a great athlete, but he is aware of everything happening on the field,” Lavine said about his 6-3, 230-pound senior who alertly found McAndrew without a defender lined up close to him.

The Panthers capped things off by marching eight plays to paydirt early in the final with Kunkel legging out the final yard.

Shenandoah avoided the shutout when Dempster hooked up on an 11-yard scoring strike to Aaryn Nickerson.

QUOTEABLE … “Their defensive tackles whopped us a little bit in the first half, so we said in the second half that we’d try to go outside some more.” Mark Lavine said about the adjustment that paid big dividends after intermission for the Panthers.

NUMBERS ... Panther Valley’s dominance on the scoreboard was reflected in the stats, as it held a 448-159 advantage in total offense, and racked up 20 first downs to Shenandoah’s eight.