It was senior night for the class 4A #14 Knoxville Volleyball Squad and the Panthers took care of business and honored seniors Emma Dunkin and Melanie Sullivan in a 3-0 sweep of Centerville 25-18, 25-10, and 25-11 on Tuesday night. The first set was back and forth and while Knoxville committed a lot of errors, the Panthers pulled it together to win the set. Knoxville was dominant in sets two and three getting the Reddetts out of system multiple times. Seniors Dunkin and Sullivan told KNIA/KRLS Sports the energy level early on was not where they wanted, but found the juice needed to get back on track.

Emma: We definitely started off very shaky, and after the first set we had a quick talk and decided we didn’t want to be around here anymore than what we needed to be and turned it around.”
Melanie: “A lot of it was our energy and we weren’t coaching ourselves as we normally do, but we got it done.”

Dunkin went 15/16 serving with three aces and nine digs, while Sullivan went 16/18 serving with two aces, six digs and three blocks. Brittany Bacorn led with 11 kills and Hannah Dunkin had 14 assists. Knoxville is now 19-8 on the season and 4-2 in the South Central Conference. While volleyball was playing Centerville, the Panther cross country squads were running at Centerville. The boys were 8th overall in a pack of South Central Conference squads and were just three points out of 6th place. Isaac Rankin continued his impressive freshman season placing 2nd overall in a time of 16:51. The girls were 12th lead by Janae Baker in 24th place with a time of 21:57. That was the Panthers final regular season meet. Knoxville will set its sights on the South Central Conference meet on Tuesday, hosted by the Panthers at Pine Knolls Golf Club. Knoxville Volleyball travels to the Pella Invitational on Saturday.