“We had our best game we ever had,” Panthers wide receiver Kevin Etienne said. “We worked for this. We had our chances. It’s not as good as we thought it would be, but it was our best.”

Etienne caught one pass for 21 yards in the first half. Teammate Bathie Thian also only caught one pass — an 80-yard touchdown from Dominick Otteni.

After Christ’s Church (8-1) pushed its lead to 21-10 following the early second half recovery and touchdown drive, the Panthers turned their speedy receivers loose.

Thian finished with six catches for 134 yards; Etienne had five catches for 78 yards.

“The coaches wanted to run the ball,” Thian said. “It was a good game plan. We just left too many plays out there. This is our best game of the year. But we’ll be back next week. It all came down to that one big play (on-side kick) at the end.”

The Eagles got a 1-yard touchdown run by D.J. Lampp and a 4-yard TD run by Johnny Gullet in the first half.

Gullet, a 5-foot-7 running back, finished with 157 yards on 19 carries.

Lampp ran 44 yards for a score three plays after Christ’s Church recovered the kickoff to start the third quarter.

“We knew we had to be aggressive,” Stomps said. “It was such an even battle and (the Panthers) got that (32-yard) field goal (by Thian) right there at the end (of the first half). I knew they were going to get the ball first in the second half, so we decided to kick the ball on-side. That was the play that helped us turn the tide.”