For a team building the foundation of football program that has struggled in recent memory, Panther Valley’s 13-0 loss to Pen Argyl Friday night didn’t matter so much. Gaining only seven first downs and accumulating a mere 94 yards in the game didn’t matter so much either.

What mattered to Coach Mark Lavine was that his 2-6 team didn’t play like a team that hasn’t won a game since the middle of last month. What mattered was his Panthers allowed just 13 points to the Green Knights led by a quarterback who has nearly 4,000 career passing yards and 26 touchdowns and a running back/wide receiver who has gained over 3,700 all-purpose yards and scored 29 touchdowns.

The Panthers stood toe to toe with the 5-4 visitors all game long. After a scoreless first quarter, Pen Argyl drove 71 yards in 10 plays and scored on a six yard blast up the middle by Caiden Faust.

A Panther punt to the Pen Argyl 45 set the Knights up in good field position. During the possession, quarterback Brad Rissmiller connected on two passes, one to Damian Tyminski for 12 yards and another to Mason Soos for 22 more that put the ball on Panther Valley’s 11. Tyminski ran a jet sweep around left end to the two yard line and two plays later, Faust scored from the one to send Pen Argyl to the locker room at the intermission with a 13-0 lead.

With rain coming down in the second half, both teams were conservative in their play calling. Most running plays were up the middle or off tackle from wildcat or power I formations as running around the perimeter became difficult on the wet field.

The Panthers made a great effort to cut Pen Argyl’s lead in half after they stopped the Knights on a fourth and three at their own 45 yard line with 2:40 left in the third quarter. A nine minute, 14 play drive that ended midway through the fourth stalled at the Knights’ 14 yard line after Faust broke up a Brody Breiner pass into the corner of the end zone.

With seven minutes to play in the game, the Knights ran out the clock.

Lavine had nothing but praise for his young Panthers. “I’m super proud of how we played today. We were mercy ruled the last two games and at 2-6, our kids could have mailed it in, but they came to play after a great week of practice. I was especially proud of how we played defense. We matched their physicality and we tackled much better than we’ve done in recent weeks. We didn’t finish drives and score points, but we only turned the ball over once which didn’t factor into points from their side.”

Lavine has his eyes on what’s coming in the future of Panther Valley football rather than what’s happening now. “I told our team, you have to learn how to compete before you can learn how to win and compete is exactly what we did tonight and that’s all we can ask for.”

FORGET THE WET ... Despite the rain that worsened in the second half, both teams fumbled just once despite wet ball snaps to quarterbacks and running backs in wildcat formations.

MUD MASTER ... Panther Valley linebacker Brad Jones was a tackling machine, stopping runs for little or no gain and chasing Pen Agyl’s quarterback from the pocket all game long. Jones’ muddied jersey was only half as dirty as the running backs he drove into the saturated ground.

UP NEXT ... The Panthers host the Tamaqua Blue Raiders next Friday night in the last game of the regular season for both teams.