It was a sweep in Osceola for the Knoxville Basketball Squads as the Panther girls took control early and beat Clarke 46-32, while the class 3A #4 boys overwhelmed the Indians in a 90-35 drubbing heard live on 95.3 KNIA. The girls jumped on top 10-0 and held Clarke at arm’s length for most of the game. Defense was the Panthers’ calling card, limiting Clarke to single digits in three of the four quarters and holding Clarke’s leading scorer Maisy McCoy to just three points. Coach Matt Ritchhart told KNIA/KRLS Sports his team is getting better at half court defense.

Ritchhart: “We really want to dial up the pressure and we did a good job for the most part. Going through the conference the second time around we want to turn up the pressure and just play simple defense and we did that today.”

Hannah Dunkin led the Panthers with 25 points. The boys, like Monday at Davis County, rocketed out of the gates, and kept the foot down and took control early on to post a 55 point win. Knoxville was up by 26 points at halftime, and 38 at the end of the 3rd quarter. Knoxville found it easy at times to run the offense and fast break. Landon Norris and Koby Higginbotham scored 19 points each, with Kaiden Smith having 13 points and Tristan Stevenson getting 12 to place four Panthers in double figures. Knoxville girls are now 4-9 on the season and 4-5 in South Central Conference play while the boys are 12–0 and 9-0 in the conference. Both teams will welcome Davis County, who they just played on Monday back to Knoxville Gym for Panthers vs. Cancer night on Friday.