Only three members of Schuylkill Haven’s young football team can drive, according to Coach Mike Farr.

He was referring to driving a car, because his team knew how to drive the football up the field against Panther Valley on Friday night.

The team, which has only three seniors, used big plays to pull away from the Panthers, 40-27.

PV did a great job going toe-to-toe with the Hurricanes in the first half, but a strong ground attack gave Haven a 20-point lead early in the fourth quarter and the Panthers couldn’t overcome it.

It was a disappointment for the Panthers’ first year coach Mark Lavine, who is building on a program that hasn’t seen a lot of gridiron success the past several years.

“This one hurts,” Lavine said, calling some major mistakes made by the defense “very disheartening.”

“The amount of big plays we gave up, we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what’s going on and why we’re not getting stops,” he said.

“Our kickoff team gave up big plays and at the end of the half we had 10 guys on the field.”

The game started out with potential for the Panthers. They scored on their first two possessions. They came close to scoring on their third series but a missed field goal ended that drive.

In the first quarter, the Panthers had nine first downs to Haven’s two. They had 149 total yards in the first quarter while the Hurricanes had 61. Eighty-four of those first quarter yards were from senior power runner Michael Pascoe, who also had a rushing touchdown and threw a scoring pass to sophomore Brennan Kunkel.

PV drove 74 yards on its first touchdown drive, all on the ground with Pascoe covering 57 of them.

His one yard touchdown run came with about nine minutes left on the clock.

It took less than a minute for the Hurricanes to answer thanks to a long kickoff return by Connor Goehring that put the ball on the Haven 38. Four plays later, Goehring scored on a 16-yard run.

The Panthers scored again in the first half with senior David “Trey” McAndrw, who has had numerous touchdowns as a receiver this year, showing his strength as a running back. He bolted around the right tackle and into the corner of the end zone on a 23-yard scamper.

On their next series, the Hurricanes tied it.

After a failed Panther field goal attempt, Haven got the ball on their 20 with three seconds left in the half. The Hurricanes pretended that they were going to take a knee and run-out the clock, but then Aiden Myers, a six-foot junior, emerged from the back and ran the full 80 yards for a score.

Myers finished the night with five touchdowns.

Farr said, “I think Panther Valley played a great game. We just executed - bottom line. We had all those 14 and 15 year olds up front and they came out and said, ‘You know what, we’re gonna win this football game.’ ’’

“We started six freshmen tonight so I’m really proud of them.”

KING ON THE FIELD ... It was homecoming night for Panther Valley and four football players were among the candidates for homecoming king. They were Michael Pascoe, David “Trey” McAndrew, Ethan Gardiner and Austin Hadley. Although none became the Homecoming King, there’s no question Pascoe was king of the football field. He carried 28 times for 186 yards, and threw for another 113.

FLYOVERS ... At all the home games at Panther Valley this week, there has been a “fly over” at the conclusion of the National Anthem. The large, model plane makes two passes over the stadium as soon as the anthem is finished.