Tensions were high in the Tuesday night field hockey rivalry matchup between the Paint Branch Panthers and Blake Bengals. While the final score, 9-0 Bengals, seemed a blowout, it did not mean that the game was not a hard fought battle.

Despite the final score, the Panthers did not go down without a fight. In fact, it  took the Bengals until the 11:21 mark in the first half to get on the board. From there, the Bengals marched on to score their next two goals in under 20 seconds, to make it 3-0.  

This point marked the fatigue moment for the Panthers who were playing a lot of defense. The exhaustion started to set in for the Panthers, who not only mentally, but also physically had a hard time keeping up. Adding to the frustration, call after call went against the Panthers making it hard to keep their heads up.

By  the time the Panthers had a chance to catch their breath, the scoreboard tallied 7-0, Blake. At the 15’ minute mark in the second half, head coach Cassie Smink decided to call a Panther timeout to rally her troops and provide some instruction on how to build off of this game for the rest of the season.

“Think about something positive that you did and build from there,” Coach Smink told her girls. The lady Panthers toughed the rest of the game out, trying to improve their game moving forward.