Northeastern’s infield meets during Monday’s sectional final against Knightstown.
CENTERVILLE, Ind. – The Northeastern baseball team had its season come to an end on Monday night as the Knights fell 12-9 to Knightstown in the championship game of the Class 2A Sectional 41.
“They’re a good team,” Northeastern Head Coach Steve Bray said. “They’ll go a long way.”
The Panthers (20-8) advance to face Heritage Christian (14-8) in Saturday’s Park Tudor Regional.
“We struggled finding the strike zone,” Bray added. “We had a couple of innings where we had two outs and nobody on and they scored runs. It just made it tough.”
Austin Kenworthy led the Knights (14-11) with three hits, while Garrett Dill knocked in five runs on two hits.
Mason Fisher and Bailey Stewart added two hits each.
Northeastern jumped all over Panthers starter Spencer Mattix with four runs in the first inning.
Dill made it 2-0 with a single. Logan Lawhorn and Stewart finished the rally with run-scoring singles.
Knightstown scored three times in the bottom of the first before the Knights added another run in the second as Kenworthy came home on a wild pitch.
The Panthers closed the gap to 5-4 after they batted in the second.
Kenworthy’s RBI single in the fourth put the Knights up 6-4, but in the bottom of the inning the Panthers went on top 7-6.
In the fifth inning, Knightstown scored five times to build a 12-6 advantage.
“We didn’t give up,” Bray said. “Our kids kept fighting. I feel like they left it all out on the field. They gave it all they had to try to come back.”
Dill blasted a three-run double in the top of the sixth, but that was as close as the Knights could get.