Franco Umeh's deflected second-half strike earned the win, with skipper Joe Whitworth superb between the posts for Palace.
It's massive, massive (for the club) and for the players as well," Powell told Palace TV. I say for the players, but coming here last year and losing the final we couldn't do it again. We couldn't do it again, and that was the mantra.
We wanted to, by all means, win it. I mean, it wasn't our best performance, but we were up against a really good side. They were really good side last year, and again, they've just got very good players. And then we rode our luck, yes, but that's football. That's football.
I said before the game: it's about creating memories. As they go on in their life, life's all about memories, right? And wherever they go in the game, you shouldn't forget these memories.
This (the Palace Academy) is a school of football. You go into the professional game, and you look back - it's still part of you.
That's why I said 'create memories. I know it was a bad memory last year, but let's create a good memory and carry that for the rest of your days.'"
Powell also praised Whitworth's performance.
That's why he's got the armband," he said of Whitworth. He's been doing that all season for us, with the amount of saves, and he's kept us in games, and the amount of penalties that he's saved, hence why he got U21s Player of the Season, and rightly so. He deserves it. He just kept us in the game today.
But that is football, right? If you've got a good goalkeeper, or good defence, or a good goalkeeper behind you, it just keeps you alive in games.
We rode our luck. He (Umeh) was a bit fortunate in the box. Franco, it wasn't his cleanest strike, but the ball's in the back of the net, and no-one really talks about that just that we won it."