In week 0, the Panthers didn’t get their chance to play an official game like many other teams did across Wyoming but they did participate in the Kemmerer scrimmage along with several other teams, so this past Wednesday was Cokeville’s first chance at real official game action for the season. The Panthers came out like a team excited to be colliding pads with someone other than each other finally, as they scored two touchdowns in the first six minutes of the game to set the tone very early on. While their opponent was a JV squad from Sky View High School down in Smithfield, Utah it shouldn’t be understated how impressive the Cokeville rushing attack was during their rare mid-week game.

Jack Dayton was the Panthers most explosive runner throughout the afternoon, scoring twice and playing the role as their go-to ball carrier when in need of a big play such as several 3rd and long situations, when he routinely picked up chunk gains to move the sticks. Dayton also serves as the team’s primary kicker meaning he racked up additional points kicking all the extra points on the day.

On the defensive side of the ball, Justin Moyes was seemingly omnipresent recording 2 interceptions and deflecting another pass at the line of scrimmage on a 4th down to cause a turnover on downs around mid-field. He was the best defensive player on a day in which the defense held Sky View’s offense to 6 points halfway through the 4th quarter and was pitching a shutout at halftime.

Sky View did manage 2 late touchdowns against the Panthers backups once the game was well in hand to make the final score a slightly more respectable 42-21 but for a majority of the game, there was no game. It was practically decided from the opening whistle after Cokeville jumped on top early on with the aforementioned pair of touchdowns on their 1st 2 possessions of the game and never relinquished it or were even threatened truthfully.

This impressive be victory will tested next week for Cokeville as the #5 ranked Panthers will travel to Lovell to take on the #1 ranked team in Wyoming 2A in what should be one of the premiere games of the week across the Cowboy state.