What started out rather clunky for the Knoxville Girls basketball Squad quickly turned into another blowout win in the South Central Conference. The Panthers beat the Chargers after starting slowing in the first quarter 64-27 as heard on 95.3 KNIA. A 12-6 first quarter grew lead to 32-19 when Knoxville started off the second quarter on an 11-0run and after a few adjustments at halftime…the Panthers blew the doors off the Chargers to put the game away in the second half outscoring Chariton 32-to-eight in the final 16 minutes of play. Panthers Coach Jim Uitermarkt told KRLS Sports they changed the way they were guarding Chariton’s post player Avery Hall and put Tara Uitermarkt’s length on her and limited her to just two buckets in the second half.

Uitermarkt:
“But when she gets in front of a girl it’s hard to get that lob pass over her. When she did miss we got the rebound pretty well, and Marley was in double figure rebounds, so that was big.”

Katie Keitges scored 25 points to lead Knoxville, Maggie Wilkins scored 17, but 21 points combined came from Marley McKay, Emma Dunkin, and Tara Uitermarkt. The boys may have won by 22 points 66-to-44…but it was anything but easy. After a slow start to the game by both Knoxville and Chariton…the Panthers picked it up a bit in the second quarter to take a 36-27 lead at the break…and came out firing on all cylinders in the second half. Coach Jeff Larson told KRLS Sports his team’s effort was better, especially defensively in the second half.

Larson:
“We felt in the first half even though we had a lead, we got outworked. Kieren helped out a little bit. We can’t get out worked in games. I felt we came out in the second half and came to play and took care of stuff. We played a lot better help defense in the second half, we were ready to help out on the lobs and did a better overall job.”

Kieren Nichols had a great night with 32 points to lead the Panther scoring. The Knoxville girls are 5-0 on the season and 2-0 in the South Central Conference…while the boys are 2-1 and also 2-0 in conference play. The boys travel to Grinnell on Monday, while the girls await Davis County on Tuesday.