With Dad’s Stadium packed on Monday night, the battle was set between the Plant Panthers and Robinson Knights for South Tampa flag football dominance. After their first loss of the season at Saturday’s Capital City Classic to Lincoln, the Knights came out on top in a tight game by a score of 19-13.

The highly-anticipated matchup pitted two of the top teams in the area against each other, as the Knights are currently ranked first in the 1A classification while the Panthers are second in the 2A classification. Although they were not competing for a district title, the rivalry was a fight for bragging rights.

“[Plant] is a very good team and we’re a very good team,” Head Coach Joshua Saunders said. “Anybody who loves flag football needed to come watch that, because that locks you in forever.”

The game started off strong for the Knights with an interception by Kelly Dorsey (’16) on the very first play of the game. The next play culminated with a touchdown pass to McKenna Tyson (’17).

With a 6-0 lead, the Knights got a 50 yard run by Emily Draper (’17). The very next play, she ran the ball into the end zone, increasing the lead to 13-0.

The Panthers put up one touchdown during the first half on a touchdown pass from Payton Paro (’17) to Sam Ashby (’17), making the score 13-6 at the break.

The second half started with a game-tying touchdown by the Panthers on a pass from Paro to Allyson Abbey (’17). With only four minutes to go, the Knights forced the Panthers to turn the ball over on downs. Megan Bohan (’16) then caught the go-ahead touchdown from Kayla Knowlton (’16) before the game ended with an impressive interception by Tatum Brookes (’16).

Sarah Jennewein (’17) ended the night with two sacks, Emily Draper (’17) rushed for a total of 130 yards and a touchdown and Megan Bohan (’16) and McKenna Tyson (’17) both played lockdown defense and made big-time catches on the way to another win over Plant.

“I feel like I played really well this game,” Tyson said. “I definitely wanted to show out in front of all of our fans who came out today and for my team because this is a really good game and it’s our rival team. And we as a team also played really well, and I’m really proud of my team tonight, we showed up.”

With the win, the Knights improve 8-1 on the season. They will play Chamberlain at home on Thursday, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m.