It was all Knoxville, all the time Friday night as both boys and girls welcomed Cardinal into the South Central Conference with two running clock drubbings 70-33 in the girls game and 84-44 in the boys contest heard live on kniakrls.com KNIA3. The girls bolted out to a 16-2 lead and got the lead as high as 40 points in the 2nd half. Brittany Bacorn was unstoppable scoring a career high 36 points with most of those points in the paint. Panthers Coach Matt Ritchhart told KNIA/KRLS Sports the start was as good as he could have imagined.

Ritchhart: “We wanted to get out and pressure them right away, and play with a high tempo. We hit some shots early, Anna hit that three early, Emma hit a three around that time. It was a great start and a good way to end and now we get ready for Tuesday.”

Emma Dunkin scored 15 points for Knoxville, who go to 2-0 on the season and begin conference play 1-0. The boys game was also a runaway as Knoxville grabbed control of the game midway though the 2nd quarter, ending the first half on a 9-1 run and were never threatened after. The Panthers were very balanced with no player scoring more than 13 points. Coach Troy Pearson told KNIA/KRLS Sports his defense was much better than Tuesday, and the offense was also playing well.

Pearson: “What I liked about our offensive game was we didn’t fall in love with the 3. We were calling for paint touches and you’ll always hear us yelling that. When you get paint touches good things happen.”

Landen Norris scored 13 points, Jack Bertrand had 12 while Noah Keefer and Kaiden Smith both scored nine points. Knoxville is now 1-1 and start off South Central Conference play at 1-0. Both teams are back at it Tuesday against Clarke.