(Sentinel photo by Roy Tucker) K-P's Paul Peterson fights for yardage as Wolverine defenders work to bring the running back down. The Panthers lost their home opener Friday night, falling 33-7 to River Valley. [Click to enlarge]

Kingsley-Pierson's young football squad showed a few glimpses of improvement but it wasn't enough as they dropped their third straight game, suffering a 33-6 setback at the hands of River Valley on Friday.

Senior quarterback Chris Olson was a major catalyst for the Panthers' offense as he had 164 yards of total offense. The senior was 4-13 passing for 77 but was picked off twice by the Wolverines.

Olson also put up 86 yards on the ground - 84 coming on one play - on 12 carries to lead the Panthers in that category. Fellow senior Paul Peterson contributed 78 yards on 15 carries.

Olson also scored the Panthers' first points of the season as he scooted 84 yards for a touchdown run.

"We ran a quarterback sweep and he just made a couple good moves and broke it to the outside," said K-P's Bart Boustead. "After that, he just outran everyone else down the field. It was just an athletic play on his part."

"Chris has done some good things for us," continued Boustead. "All the seniors are trying to pull us together and helping the young kids learn. We're trying to grow up as fast as possible."

The Wolverines were able to put up 339 yards of total offense up on the Panthers as they had 205 passing and 134 yards on the ground.

Ryan Bottjen had 11 total stops while Peterson had 13, including nine unassisted. Ross McNaughton had 12 unassisted tackles and one assisted tackle.

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Michael Weaver had the Panthers' lone takeaway as he recovered a Wolverine fumble.

"We did some good things. We just killed ourselves on some drives," said Boustead. "The kids are growing up a little bit - they're young and growing up. It's going to take awhile for them to get use to the things that are going to make it happen."

The road doesn't get any easier for the Panthers who will travel to Le Mars this weekend to take on Le Mars Gehlen. The Jays are currently 2-1 (1-0 in the district) and are coming off of a major upset of a ranked Alta team.

"We have the film we have to watch yet but Coach (Tony) Gunter is a good coach and he'll have the kids ready to play," said Boustead. "They just beat a good Alta team so we know they'll be tough."