The Knoxville and Grinnell baseball teams sure know how to give fans their money’s worth, as the two squads have provided extra inning baseball in both of their two meetings in 2018. After the Panthers took the regular season matchup in 10 innings, the Tigers got their revenge on Monday night when they won a 7-6 thriller in 11 frames in the class 3A district final.
As heard on KNIA, both pitchers were locked in early with Knoxville’s Rylan Cox and Grinnell’s Ethan Mitchell cruising through the first two innings unscathed. The third inning was when things got dicey for the Panthers, as it was two outs with bases loaded and a full count when a check swing called no swing walked in the games first run. An error and two hits later brought in five more and the Tigers opened up a 6-0 lead. Knoxville went to work however, as they got on the board in the sixth with a two run knock off the bat of freshman Mike Hudson. They continued to chip away pushing across two more in the fifth thanks to a RBI groundout by Jacob Zuck and a pass ball that plated Ben Wallace. The 6-4 score held true until the seventh when Zuck came through in the clutch with a two RBI single to the opposite field to send the game to extras. Both teams had numerous scoring chances in extras but squandered them until Grinnell broke through in the 11th. With bases loaded and one out the Tigers put on a suicide squeeze and a perfect bunt by Blake Hollibaugh to the third base side ended the game and Grinnell advanced to the substate final. Wallace was stellar on the bump in middle relief going 6 1/3 innings of no earned runs. Carter Bailey took the loss in an inning and a third. Zuck finished with a pair of hits and three RBI on the day. Patrick Crawford added three hits including two doubles.
Despite the loss head coach Matt Miller praised his team’s ability to fight back when down big. “They never doubted just like they have all year and knew we just needed to keep chipping away. I’m so proud of the way they came back and so proud of the coaching staff for focusing on the next task at hand.”
Knoxville closes the year 30-12 and bid farewell to nine seniors.

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