The Pflugerville Panthers’ season ended Friday night with a 77-75 loss to the highly ranked San Antonio Wagner Thunderbirds. Losing a game is never a joyous occasion but the undersized Panthers played a courageous game that probably would have been enough to beat almost any other team in the state.

After falling behind by as many as 19 points in the second half, the Panthers fought back and could have won the game if it had not been for a great shot block by the Thunderbirds 6-foot-7-inch forward Andre Roberson on a Panther layup attempt.

The Panthers took an early 8-4 lead following a Deon Mitchell 3-pointer. However, with the Panthers’ leading rebounder and scorer Demetrius Smith in early foul trouble, the Thunderbirds took a 20-16 lead to end the first quarter.

With Smith on the bench the Panthers struggled offensively in the second quarter. Defensively they did not have an answer for Tulsa signee Jordan Clarkson, who scored nine points in the second quarter to increase the Thunderbirds lead at halftime to 37-27.

In the third quarter, the Thunderbirds took their biggest lead of the night at 48-29 before the Panthers went on a 22-11 run mainly behind the hot shooting of Smith to make the score 59-51 at the of the quarter. Smith, playing in his final game as a Panther, put up 11 points in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Smith picked up where he left off, and cut the Thunderbirds lead to 68-64 after he stole the ball and scored on a driving layup. The Thunderbirds built their lead back up to 74-66 with less then two minutes to play following a dunk by Clarkson. However, Clarkson was given a technical foul for hanging on the rim and Mtichell converted one free throw to make the score 74-67. Darrian Dempsey then nailed a 3-pointer to make the score 74-70. Following the basket, Dempsey, a junior, stole the inbound pass and scored to bring the Panthers to within two points at 74-72. The Thunderbirds commited an offensive foul, giving the Panthers a chance to tie but Roberson came up with an outstanding block that preserved the Thunderbirds victory, as they closed the game by hitting 3 out of 4 free throws in the last 20 seconds.

The Panthers were led in scoring by Smith with 28 points. After being saddled with foul trouble in the first half, he scored 25 points in the second half.

The Thunderbirds were led in scoring by Clarkson with 28 points.

The Panthers end the season with a record of 27-9, while the Thunderbirds improved to 36-1, as they advance to the region tournament.