Only a couple of times in the last several years have Jason Janke’s Ellsworth Panthers been blown out before halftime in a Middle Border Conference game. The Tuesday night contest at home against Somerset was one of them.

Ellsworth wasn’t competitive even from the opening tip. Somerset began the game on an 11-0 run as Janke burned timeouts to try to stunt the Spartans’ momentum. Ellsworth’s star guard Molly Janke didn’t score in the first half because of foul trouble and the game was essentially over by halftime, as Somerset had built a 29-11 lead going into the intermission.

“Everything from Molly getting into trouble to not being able to buy a bucket and you keep thinking it will turn, it will turn, and it just never turned,” Jason Janke said. “We just have to flush it. We didn’t really talk much after the game in the locker room because not much positive was going to come from it.”

For Jason Janke and the Panthers, the first half was a scene straight out of nightmares. Molly Janke, their best player in nearly every statistical category, missed most of the first half with foul trouble. The Panthers struggled to move the ball against Somerset’s zone. Meanwhile, the Spartans couldn’t miss as they buried jumpers at will.

“Since we’ve gotten competitive, it’s only the second or third time where we’ve really been out of a conference game at halftime,” Jason Janke said. “We’ve at least been within striking distance with a game plan. Tuesday was like, let’s just get something positive and that still didn’t happen.”

Somerset controlled nearly every aspect of the game for the entire 36 minutes. The Spartans won the rebounding battle, they forced more turnovers, and they shot well. Tuesday night was simply an old-fashioned blowout.

Perhaps Ellsworth’s only saving grace is that a similar situation happened last year and Jason Janke’s Panthers responded by winning four of the next five games. During the heart of last season’s Middle Border Conference schedule, Altoona went to Ellsworth on a cold January day and thrashed the Panthers 62-30.

The Panthers responded by winning four of the next five games, three of which were contests against other Middle Border Conference teams. Jason Janke spoke about how that could serve as a blueprint for how his roster can respond to Tuesday’s loss against Somerset.

“We had a game like that last year and we recovered,” Jason Janke said. “Altoona at home was very similar, except for the fact that we were competitive in the first half of that game. We’ll just have to recover and give the kids some time off.”

While Jason Janke’s words in the locker room certainly carry weight as the head coach, perhaps no words have more impact on the roster than of team captain Molly Janke. Jason Janke spoke about Molly’s message to the girls in the locker room after the brutal loss.

“We have some good leadership, Molly in particular,” Jason Janke said. “Molly as a student-athlete told them, ‘We can’t let this get us down. We played poorly and it’s one game. Don’t let it define us.’ I was proud of her as a captain for saying that and helping the kids move on.”

With the loss, Ellsworth drops to 6-3 overall and 1-2 in Middle Border Conference action. The Panthers have lost two conference games in a row and now hold sole possession of sixth place in the league standings.

The Panthers are back in action on Friday, Dec. 30, when Ellsworth travels to Mondovi for a non-conference matchup. The tip-off for that game is slated for 12:15 p.m.