WIESBADEN, Germany – Traditionally, the Stuttgart football program doesn’t need a lot of help to win football games.

Not that the Panthers will complain when they get it, like during their 42-0 semifinal victory over Wiesbaden on Friday evening.

Miscues on the Warriors’ opening two drives allowed the Panthers (6-1) to jump out to a 14-point advantage 5 minutes into the game. The visitors never looked back, enacting the mercy rule at halftime.

“They caused some self-inflicted things, putting us in a good position to jump up on them early,” Stuttgart coach Antoine Reed said. “We just wanted to come out and execute and play mistake-free football and just do our job.”

Their job was being efficient on offense. The Panthers punched the ball into the end zone on five of their six possessions in the first half.

Stuttgart started its first two possessions at the Wiesbaden 2-yard line after some punting woes by the Warriors (6-1). The first was a high snap that sailed over punter Brandon Moss and was recovered by senior Joseph Vernetti.

The next play, Stuttgart running back Michael Watkins found the end zone.

On the following possession, sophomore Jack Dagg blocked the punt, and the ball went out of bounds at the Wiesbaden 2. Quarterback Kai Lewis took an outside run immediately after that to double the Panthers’ lead.

Those were two of four red-zone touchdowns. On the last play of the first quarter, Watkins took a pitch and cut inside for a 20-yard score. And to close out the half, Lewis connected with running back Matthew Thompson over the middle of the field for a touchdown.

“If we’re in the red zone, we’re scoring,” Lewis said. “When we were on that 2-yard line, we were going to get the ball to M.J. (Watkins) – we’re going to score. We’ll do a QB run – we’ll score.

“That part, making it easy, is really trusting our group and attest to that chemistry that we have as a team.”

Watkins produced a big day. On top of the two offensive scores, the senior picked off a Campton Moschgat pass and scampered 45 yards to pay dirt to make it 35-0 at the 9-minute, 10-second mark in the second quarter.

Not that senior running back/defensive back was concerned about his stat line.

“That’s all I care about: the team and winning,” Watkins said. “I was very happy to be able to contribute and do my job.”

His pick-six was one of four Wiesbaden turnovers in the game. Jeremyah Reyes intercepted another pass late in the first quarter, and linebacker James Chen recovered a fumble with 1:19 left in the first half.

Reed praised his defense for shutting down a Warriors’ offense that averaged 45 points per game heading into Friday’s contest.

“Our defense I think is the best in DODEA-Europe,” Reed said. “We’re pretty strong up front. We got a lot of experienced guys. They’re hungry. When they do their job and we execute, we have good results.”

Friday’s result ended what had been Wiesbaden’s best season in a decade. The Warriors blitzed through the South conference with an unbeaten record and had allowed just 19 points in the regular season.

The loss to Stuttgart doesn’t put a damper on that, said senior Alexander Varela, who totaled 82 yards on 10 carries on Friday.

“Of course, the regular season, it was good. We all were able to execute,” Varela said. “We just came up short today.”