With prideful emotion all over Panther Valley coach Matt Davis's face after the game, one would have thought his team was victorious.

"This was definitely our best effort in our past 11 games," he said. "We have grown so much as a team and we proved it tonight against a tough match up."Despite Schuylkill Haven's 21-7 win, the final outcome was in doubt until the Hurricane's Nick Kerschner gave his team a 14 point lead when he blasted off tackle for a four yard touchdown with 3:39 to go. Even though the Panthers couldn't get any offense going in the second half, their defense played tough throughout the half."We were outsized," said Davis. They have three guys over 290. We wanted the hot humid weather thinking it might affect them more, but it didn't work out that way, especially in the second half."Haven opened the scoring with a six minute, 10 play drive capped off by Danny Lozada's rollout out 14 yard touchdown pass into the far left end zone corner to Preston Gehring. Panther Valley answered right back with a 12 play drive, finished with quarterback, Danny Gilberry's four yard TD strike to sophomore tight end,Tristan Blasko."I can't say enough about Giberry's performance," said Davis. "This was his first ever game as a varsity quarterback and he kept us in there right until the end. Danny's going to give us a great two years running our offense."With just under two minutes to go in the first half, Haven took advantage of a Panther pass interference penalty, scoring four plays later on another short yardage plunge by Kirschner.The Hurricanes shut down PV's offense in the second half, allowing only one first down and six yards rushing. The Panthers did get a huge break, however, at the start of the fourth quarter when Brendan Morgans' punt was fumbled and recovered by PV. A penalty and a three and prevented any game tying rally before Haven drove 73 yards in 13 plays to tack on their third score of the night."Coach Davis has done a great job with his program," said Hurricane's coach, Mike Farr. "That's the best team I've seen in years. They played physical and swarmed to the ball on defense all night long. Kirschner had a big night for us, but he would tell you it's because we did a solid job up front opening up holes for him."PV's Davis explained his team's second half struggles."In the second half, their defense took away the edge from us. They controlled field position and the clock. Our drives started mostly deep in our own territory."MATCH POINTS ... After Haven scored on a six minute drive, the Panthers followed with their own six minute score. Big plays were Gilberry's shovel pass to Anthony Vavra who broke up the middle for 16 yards and Gilberry's 39 yard scamper to the Haven 28 yard line, setting it up for his eventual fourth down pass to Blasko for the game tying TD.RIDE THE HORSE ... Schuylkill Haven gave the ball to senior running back Nick Kerschner 18 times for 125 yards. Seventy of those yards came in the second half.TAKING ITS TOLL ... The Haven offense wore down the Panthers on their 13 play drive resulting in their final score. The Panthers' defense gave up no plays over ten yards until Haven quarterback, Lozada ran around left end for a 19 yard gain to the PV15.REVERSE RETURN ... On the ensuing kickoff, the Panthers' charged up their fans when Gilberry reversed the ball to Ali Capobianco who broke tackles and ran for 30 yards to the Haven 44 yard line with over three minutes to go in the game. Three pass incompletions and a QB sack, however, ended any thoughts of a Panther comeback.THE NUMBERS GAME ... How unusual it was to see Panther quarterback, Danny Gilberry, who wore number 84 passing to Anthony Vavra and Tristen Blasko, who wore numbers 20 and 5. It might be the first time in this area since many years ago that a QB wears a number usually given to a wideout or tight end.