Knox combo just too much for Clark

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KNOX -- For the first time since 1989, Knox is in a sectional championship football game, and it did it with a flourish, defeating Clark 32-13.

For Knox senior wide receiver Devin Garbison and quarterback Cody Binkley, who have dedicated their summers the past three years to working on their passing game, everything went right.

Binkley connected on six passes to his favorite receiver, and Garbison scored on three of them.

The 5-foot-10, 150-pound Garbison opened the game on the Redskins' first play from scrimmage with a 70-yard touchdown connection from Binkley.

Clark would score on a 3-yard Cameron Copeland run to give the Pioneers a short-lived lead at 7-6.

Fifteen seconds later lightning struck again for Binkley and Garbison, on an almost exact repeat of their first touchdown, when Garbison out-ran his defensive player for a second time, and Binkley laid the pass nicely into his arms for another 70-yard touchdown explosion. Binkley found Todd Fornelli in the end zone, and the Redskins went back up 14-7 with three minutes.

Four minutes into the second quarter, it was Binkley-to-Garbison again, this time a five-yard pass, and the Redskins started to put some distance between themselves and Clark. In all, Garbison had a career night, seven catches, three TDs for 170 yards.

"I don't know where my team went to," Clark coach Dave Verta said. "It wasn't my football team (out there). Our inexperience and youth hurt, we felt like we could do what we wanted to on offense. We just had some bad breaks.

Three lost fumbles really cost the Pioneers in the game, killing what could have been some significant drives.

"You can't do that in a second round of the sectional. Knox is a good football team, well coached and very disciplined,"Verta said.

After the half, Knox pretty much shut the Pioneers down, quarterback Micah Rooke was able do some nice things in the air, he was 18-of-31 with one interception for 166 yards. But Clark just could move the ball on the ground, with Knox's defense pretty much controlling things, and shutting the Pioneers out in the second half.

Meanwhile the Redskins, without running back Joe Rietow, who is out with an ACL, were dominating on offense. They accumulated 401 total yard, with 259 of those coming on Binkley's 12-of-18 passing (with one interception). Besides Garbison's three TDs and tons of yardage, Binkley mixed things up to six different receivers, and one was a brilliant reception and run by senior Todd Fornelli, who got the ball to the Pionner run, where senior Kyle Hernadez took the football in.

Without Rietow to carry the ball, the Redskins got stellar rushing from Chris Keiper (eight carries, 35 yards and a TD), Kyle Hernandez (11 carries, 32 yards, and a TD) and Casey Bailey (six carries, 23 yards, a TD).

Mixing the run with the pass, Knox was 9-11 on third down conversions, and 1-of-3 on fourth down conversions.

The Redskins, now 7-4, will travel to Andrean for the Class 3A Sectional 17 championship game.