The Oskaloosa Girls’ Basketball team battled hard but their season came to an end Wednesday night at the hands of Knoxville, losing 69-38.

The first quarter gave Oskaloosa fans a glimpse of what to expect in the future as several players contributed to one of the best periods of the year for the Indians. Osky would go on a run with Knoxville star Katie Keitges on the bench. The Indians would exit the first quarter with an 18-14 lead.

Keitges would come back for the second quarter, however, and spark a huge 29-3 quarter which would give the Panthers a 43-21 halftime edge.

The third quarter wasn’t much nicer to the Indians, despite seeing some good run with a lineup involving three forwards: Marleigh Denburger, Jillian Jennings, and Amanda Fay. In the fourth, the teams emptied the bench and the final score finished at 69-38.

Oskaloosa was led in the game by Marleigh Denburger, who had a very nice stat line of 10 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 blocked shots. Mary Nelson and Amanda Fay added 7 points each with Fay collecting 8 boards.

Katie Keitges led the Panthers and finished with a game-high 28 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals.

Oskaloosa finishes the season with an 0-22 record, but showed vast improvement in several areas as the season wore on with first year Head Coach Jacie White. The loss ends the career of Kinsey Cook, Osky’s lone senior.

Knoxville moves on to the Class 4A Region 6 Semifinal where they will play Pella on the road on Saturday. Knoxville improved to 16-6 after Wednesday’s win.

The Oskaloosa boys are about to begin postseason play with their substate quarterfinal next Monday, February 19th, playing at around 8 PM following Knoxville and Bondurant-Farrar at 6:30. That is in the Oskaloosa High School Gymnasium and you can hear the action live on 99.5 FM/740 AM KMZN, radiokmzn.com, and the KMZN mobile app.