To state the obvious, on paper, winless Panther Valley had little chance against unbeaten Jim Thorpe Friday night, but to make another obvious statement, a football game has a second half and that's when the Olympians rallied for a 35-17 win over the Panthers.

Panther Valley stormed out of their locker room and jumped out to a 17-0 advantage by the six-minute mark of the second quarter. From the opening kickoff, the Panthers drove 84 yards with freshman Rene Figueroa breaking tackles on an electric 54-yard TD run.After Thorpe (6-0) fumbled on its first possession, PV took over on the JT 22 and eight plays later, Brendan Morgans booted a 29-yard field goal to increase the Panther lead by 10.In the second quarter, PV stunned the Jim Thorpe crowd to go up 17-0 when quarterback Hunter Kennedy hit Danny Gilberry with an 8-yard slant scoring pass.Thorpe finally got on the board on a Robbie Heller 6-yard run, but the first half belonged to the home team.The second half was a completely different story as the Olympians scored 28 unanswered points beginning with a 63-yard trap play off left tackle by Heller.With a wry grin on his face, Panther coach Matt Davis said, "Looks like we should have stayed in the locker room and not come out for the second half." Getting serious, he said, "As a winless team, we were right there against an unbeaten team. We certainly were not used to playing with a lead. They smacked us in the mouth in the second half, but we still put out a great effort. I told them you never get these nights back so play hard with no regrets.'When Jim Thorpe coach Mark Rosenberger was asked what he told his team at halftime, he said. "Nothing really. I let the players talk. It's their game to play and obviously they turned anger into motivation for the second half."Heller, JT's star running back who came into the game averaging nearly nine yards a carry, was held to just eight yards rushing in the first half. He finished with 135 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries to actually improve his yards per carry average."They really tested our will in the first half," said Heller, but Coach (Frank) Miller told me if I run for six inches, I'll get 60 yards and he was right. Once I saw a crease, I kicked into a different gear.""There was no finger pointing when we fell down by 10 points, " said Rosenebrger. "Our players held themselves accountable and instead of sinking our ship, we pulled together like a family and made some big plays."Key offensive second half weapons for the Olympians were junior running back Antonio Madera, who gained 38 yards with a TD, and senior fullback Kevin Vitti, who tallied two touchdowns - one on a nifty 50-yard play-action pass over the middle when PV had 11 men up in the box to stop the run.We have a lot of versatile weapons on offense," said Rosenberger. "When they keyed on Heller on the edge, we were able to get Madera on inside runs and break Vitti open on the big pass play."FUMBILITIS ... Jim Thorpe fumbled four times in the first half killing drives and setting the Panthers up for a touchdown and field goal drive.BLACK SWARM ... Coming into the game the area's leading defense was Jim Thorpe's "Red Swarm" but it was the Panther defense that held JT to nine yards of total first-half offense. This included a four-down goal-line stand from their own five-yard line near the end of the second quarter.TWO FOR THE MONEY ... JT quarterback Dean Richards threw just three passes in the game, but one was a 50-yard TD and the other was a 40-yard pass-and-run play with Jordan McElmoyle.