The Panther soccer team took losses in two tough games last week, falling against No. 4 ranked Cody on Thursday and to No. 5 ranked Worland on Saturday. But despite the losses, Powell High School boys head soccer coach Jeff Dent sees his team headed in the right direction.

“The coaches and I are excited, because things are going in the direction we’ve been talking all season,” Dent said. “We’re looking at state and we’re taking steps up and it’s happening.”

Cody 2, Powell 0

On Thursday, Powell hosted Cody for a conference game and lost 2-0.

“It was a really tough game,” said coach Dent. He said Cody is pretty deserving of its No. 4 ranking in the state, as “they are a very good team.”

Coach Dent said that, going into the game, he was nervous about how his team would play. He felt the Panthers did not have a very high energy level, didn’t play real intense and was not focused on the game and on winning against Cody.

“I do believe they have the skill level because they did play them 2-0, which was impressive,” said coach Dent. He said the Panther squad seems to have a mental block when it comes to playing Cody.

“That’s something that I feel I’ve been striving to overcome in the boys — how to bring them to that point and in the Cody game that did not happen,” coach Dent said of the mental block.

When the Broncs and Panthers played earlier in the season, Cody won 3-0, so coach Dent said he feels like Powell did play well against Cody — and better than they had previously.

Powell held Cody scoreless in the first half. Cody scored its first goal eight minutes into the second half. Not a lot of shots were taken by either team. Stats were not available for the game, but coach Dent guessed that Cody had 10-12 shots, which is low for a team like Cody.

Coach Dent said the lower number of shots tells him that the Panther defense stepped up. Leading up to the game, Powell made some tweaks to speed up its defense.

“I think that made a significant change in the D,” said coach Dent.

One of the changes involved putting sophomore Dylan Lowery as goalkeeper.

“[Lowery] has stepped up really well in that position and performing amazingly for varsity level soccer,” said Dent.

Meanwhile, previous goalkeeper John Stutzman was moved to a defensive position; coach Dent said he made the change because Stutzman is very well versed in the new position and is a very quick player.

“That has made a difference in our defense against teams that like to push forward and are aggressive such as Cody,” said coach Dent.

The players have made changes, too.

“The rest of the team are playing a much better game where they are passing the ball and receiving the ball and looking for each other as opposed to just booting the ball forward and hoping somebody gets it,” said coach Dent, adding, “It’s a smarter team.”

Worland 2, Powell 1

“We came into Worland kind of slow,” coach Dent said.

He said the coaching staff tried to build the team up to come into the game aggressive and ready to play Worland, and “we don’t feel like they did that as much as we would have liked.”

But at the same time, coach Dent felt Powell stepped up to Worland’s type of play. The Panthers held the Warriors to a 1-0 lead going into halftime, “which is really pretty good,” said coach Dent. “Worland is a very tough team; they are ranked fifth in the state and personally, I think they are better than that.”

Coach Dent said he was both happy and unhappy with the first half: happy that Powell stepped up to play Worland, but unhappy that they didn’t step up to the point of their ability.

At halftime, the team had a talk about what they were doing well and where improvements were needed.

Coach Dent said he felt the players came together as a team coming out of the break, because “with the second half, the intense playing was amazing. They came out, they had the skill level that we’ve been practicing; they had the domination.”

Powell controlled the ball on offense during the second half.

“It was great; it was amazing to see the boys step up and do that,” coach Dent said.

Eight minutes into the second half, Jacob Herd took the ball up the side of the field and passed it forward to Brian Crawford. Crawford made a move on the end-line and then passed it back to the 18-yard line to Owen Dent.

“[Crawford] said he saw Owen [Dent] out of the corner of his eye and put the ball back to him,” said coach Dent. “Owen [Dent] just took the shot; he had an opening and he took the shot. It had a great curve and it went right up in the far left corner, just an excellent shot.”

The goal tied the game at 1.

“That combination of play was exceptionally exciting,” said coach Dent. “All the boys grasped the excitement and became more aggressive.”

About 18 minutes later, Worland scored their second goal. Coach Dent said everything just clicked for the Warriors on that possession.

“There are some [goals] that you cannot get to, no matter how hard you try, and that was one of them,” said coach Dent, praising Lowery’s great work as goalie. “In that situation, he was in the correct spot, he did everything right. The shot was just that good, that he could not get to it.”

The goal proved the game-winner in Worland’s 2-1 victory.

At the end of the game, “I had to tell them straight out how proud of them I was and, for losing, it was probably one of the best losses we have had all season, because they could have easily won that game with a couple of changes, a couple of differences,” coach Dent said, adding, “They just played a good, high-quality soccer game, so I was really proud of them ... I had nothing but praise for them at the end of the game.”

Powell took only eight shots against Worland, down from the 15-20 shots they were taking prior to spring break.

“They’ve been taking everything that we’ve been training them all season for, as we’re looking forward to state — and they just keep stepping up every week,” said coach Dent. “This Worland game was a huge step in the mental game of attacking, being aggressive and realizing that they can win these games against tough teams.”

Coach Dent said that “since day one, the first thing I wanted to teach them was ball control skills and they’ve picked that up. The second thing is what to do when you don’t have the ball. And we’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing that and we saw in that [Worland] game that it clicked. That they knew that no matter where they were on the field they were still a part of the game and they had to do something.”

The coach cited instances where the Worland defense stole the ball and booted it downfield, only to have the Panthers stop it around mid-field and bring it back. That’s something the team has been working on every day in practice, with headers, chest traps and ball control.

“To watch them doing that in the field, it’s just like, ‘You’re getting it guys, you’re doing it. This is what we what we want you to do and you have stepped up,’” said coach Dent.

This Friday, Powell hosts Riverton at 6 p.m.

Riverton beat Powell 5-0 earlier this season, but coach Dent said it’s going to be different Panther team and game.