It was the most unusual night of basketball at Albia Tuesday night between Knoxville and the Demons. The girls were able to clinch the outright South Central Conference title with a 60-33 win while the shorthanded boys fell 70-32, allowing the Demons to claim the SCC title. The girls game started off weird with Maggie Wilkins not starting due to a pregame bloody nose. But after that was taken care of she came in and scored 16 points to help the Panthers cruise to the win. Coach Jim Uitermarkt told KRLS Sports between all the sickness and playing Albia twice within a week, the defense was not as sharp as it usually was.

Uitermarkt:
“All of those things, not feeling good and kids have some owies going on. I don’t think we were super motivated, I mean we knew the conference championship was on the line, but I don’t think the girls were super motivated.”

Katie Keitges led all scorers with 22 points. Knoxville moves to 17-1 and 11-0 in the South Central Conference. The boys were playing shorthanded without leading scorer Kieren Nichols and the Panthers struggled to keep pace with Albia trailing early 20-8, and 35-12 at the half. Ben Olson led the Panthers with 11 points. Knoxville falls to 11-6 on the season and 8-3 in the conference. Both Panther teams will travel to Davis County to wrap up conference play on Thursday.