It was a tale of two halves at Panther Creek High School Friday night, with both coaches coming away from the 25-14 Leesville Road High School victory with things to work on with their team.

Leesville Road jumped out to a 25-0 first-half advantage, using a spread passing attack that helped quarterback Jake Groeschen quickly rack up 113 yards and two touchdowns through the air. With the lead in the second half, the Pride’s offense went conservative and Panther Creek’s running game picked up steam.

Catamounts running back Kel Jackson finished with 108 yards, with the vast majority coming in the second half.

“We told [our players] we would go at them a little bit in the second half and see what happens, and it worked,” Panther Creek coach Wayne Bragg said. “We just kind of ran out of time and had to throw the ball to get back in it.”

Bragg was frustrated with his team’s mistakes in the first half, attributing most of them to not taking the game seriously enough.

“We’ve got a lot of seniors now, but as a team we’ve got to get more mature,” Bragg said. “There were a couple times when the play we ran wasn’t the play we called — just stupid mistakes.”

As frustrated as Bragg was with his team’s effort in the first half, Leesville Road coach David Green was equally upset with the Pride’s second-half play.

“They kind of smacked us around in the second half,” Green said. “They ran right at us and were much more aggressive than we were.”

Green said the key to Leesville Road’s first half was setting the tone on defense and capitalizing on field position on offense.

“Being aggressive on defense sets up our offense,” Green said. “We did a good job on kickoff return that gave us good field position. I thought Jake did a pretty good job throwing the ball in the first half and in the second half with the lead we pulled it back in.”

Groeschen found Duke-recruit Zach Greene for two touchdowns, as Greene grabbed four balls for 71 yards.

Panther Creek quarterback Gray Mazzone went 11-for-18 through the air for 115 yards, balancing out Jackson’s running game.

“[Jackson’s] a good runner and he played very well for us,” Bragg said. “He’s very slick in there.”

But it was the zero penalties or turnovers in the second half that Bragg said was key.

“I told the kids, I’m not a rocket scientist but if you don’t make mistakes then you’ll do things well,” he said. “You can talk to them about mistakes all you want, but now they actually see the results. We just have to mature, period.”

After the game talking to his team, Green hit hard on the Pride’s lack of second half aggression.

“The biggest thing was that we need to be the aggressors, regardless of the score and of the half,” Green said. “We can’t come out and let the other team take it to us like that.”