With their respective seasons nearly complete, the Knoxville Boys and Girls of Summer start to look toward the substate and regionals. For baseball, the Panthers will take the Independence Day weekend off to partially enjoy winning a share of the South Central Conference title, and to give the guys time away with their families. Coach Turner Devore tells KNIA/KRLS Sports winning the conference is great, but he wants to return the program to the time where the Panthers owned the conference.

Devore: “We don’t want it to come down to the bottom of the 8th inning in a winner take all. We want to take back what we think is oours. Eddyville is a great team, but we need to get that mindset that the conference is ours and the younger guys see that and it bleeds down to them to where we expect it.”

The Panthers have one more regular season game against Bondurant-Farrar on Tuesday, then start the class 3A substate Thursday at Pella. On the other side of Panther Drive, the class 4A #12 softball squad is in regional mode after losing to Chariton on Friday, the Panthers finished 3rd in the conference. Coach Carla Smith tells KNIA/KRLS Sports with the long layoff ahead, they will schedule a scrimmage just to stay sharp and not lose any edge they have. She adds after falling to top ranked ADM last week in extra innings their mindset changed and now believe they can challenge anyone they face.

Smith: “After the ADM game on Monday morning when we had proactive and you could see the attitude of the team changed and they realized they can compete with anyone and they’ve just done a good job this week.”

The Panthers next game will be Saturday against either Fairfield or Mt. Pleasant in the class 4A regional semi-final.