Knoxville Baseball got their western Iowa road trip started on Friday night with a single varsity contest at Class 4A #6 ranked Lewis Central. The Panthers got down big early, then battled back, but ultimately lost 7-4 to the Titans.
Senior lefthander Tanner Sharp (0-4) took the loss for Knoxville as he failed to get out of the first inning in his fifth start of the year. He was relieved by Sophomore lefty Tanner Mason who didn’t make it out of the second inning. Trailing 7-0, Coach Joel Johnson turned to Jack McDonald who would hold the Titans the rest of the way. The Junior scattered 4 hits over 4 1/3 innings and more importantly kept the powerful Lewis Central offense scoreless giving his team a chance to come back in the game.
Knoxville scored 2 in the third and 2 more runs in the fifth to make it a 7-4 the game, but could get no closer on a night where Lewis Central honored their four seniors.
Ben Wallace, who was 2-3 on the night, drove home Trent Davis for the first Knoxville run. Then Jacob Zuck plated Ben Wallace on an RBI ground out. The final runs of the night would come across the plate when Justin Little drove in Davis and Wallace with a 2 RBI double of his own. Davis along with Patrick Crawford also had two hits for Knoxville.
Knoxville is now 17-15 overall and will continue their road trip tomorrow afternoon with a doubleheader at Glenwood.