The class 3A #3 Knoxville Baseball Squad thumped Clarke on Friday night 15-0 in five innings. Trenton Kingery went 4/4 with two home runs, a double and a single and five RBI. Beau Leisure also got into the offensive show with a double, a homer and two RBI. On the softball diamond next door at Clarke, the class 4A #15 Panther softball squad was enjoying an 11-4 win over the Indians. The bats were alive again as Knoxville outhit Clarke 14-10 with three Panthers socking home runs as Ciara Heffron, Brittany Bacorn, and Ashlyn Finarty helped herself out in the circle with three RBI. Finarty was the winning pitcher going the distance striking out six. Knoxville will head to Creston today, which is the hometown of Coach Carla Smith to play three games. Knoxville will get Dallas Center-Grimes, Winterset, and Clarinda. Smith tells KNIA/KRLS Sports, while the first two games will be tough, they want to compete with those teams to give themselves an idea how they stack up.

Smith: “I think we’ll be able to come out and compete with them for a while, and it may be worse than what we may think, but their hitting balls we need to see and their pitching is something we need to see also, and it’ll be an overall good experience for the girls.”

Softball improves to 8-2 and 5-1 in the South Central Conference, while Knoxville Baseball is now 17-1 and 10-0 in the South Central Conference.