Box Score

The women's basketball team enjoyed its first home game in nearly a month by blowing out Lawrence University in a Midwest Conference tussle.

The Prairie Fire (3-5, 2-3 MWC) forced 29 turnovers and outshot the Vikings (0-7, 0-3 MWC) 27-to-14 from the free throw line in the 74-50 victory that boosted the Fire's record to 2-1 in games played at Memorial Gymnasium.

It took a little while for Coach Emily Cline's squad to get going offensively.  Lawrence took its only lead of the game at 2-0 on a jumper by Cathy Kaye at the 18:22 mark.  The Prairie Fire five minutes later owned a 16-6 advantage.

The Vikings whittled the Knox lead down to six at 22-16 with 7:57 to play in the first half.  A 13-7 run by the Prairie Fire that was capped off by junior Kelly Ricketts' jumper extended the lead to 35-23 at the 3:19 mark.  The Galesburg native scored four of her six points and grabbed all five of her rebounds in the first half.  The Fire maintained the 12 point advantage over the final three-plus minutes and led Lawrence 37-25 at halftime.

Knox scored the first five points of the second half to extend the lead to 17.  The Prairie Fire put the game well out of reach by the 11:21 mark, leading 56-28.  A pair of free throws by the Vikings with 6:22 to play cut the Fire lead to 18 (60-42), but that's as close as Lawrence would get.

The Vikings have lost their three Midwest Conference contests by a combined 87 points, or an average of 29 points per game.  The other losses were at home against Illinois College (60-37) and Lake Forest College (76-36).

Nakita Chadwick and Kanesha Walker scored 10 points apiece to lead Lawrence offensively.  Chadwick recorded a double-double by also grabbing 10 rebounds while Walker had eight boards.

Lawrence shot 17-of-56 overall -- or 30 percent from the floor -- and connected on 14-of-24 free throws.  The Prairie Fire made more foul shots than the Vikings attempted.  The margin of victory could have much larger had Knox made more than 27-of-43 (63 percent) from the free throw line.  The Prairie Fire shot well from the stripe in the first half, 14-of-18 (78 percent), before cooling off to make 13-of-25 (52 percent) in the second half.

Knox hit 22-of-54 shots (41 percent) in the game and eclipsed the 40 percent mark for the first time since November 18, when the team shot a season-best 48 percent in a 79-40 win at home against Eureka College.  That was the last time the Fire played at Memorial Gym. The win against Lawrence is Knox’s second in the last three games.

Senior Jenny Haskell (Murphys, California) led all scorers with 16 points.  She also had six rebounds and four steals for the Prairie Fire.  Junior Krystyna Williams (Evanston, Illinois) continued her strong play with 15 points and seven rebounds.  She's now averaging a team-leading 12.4 points and 8.2 rebounds in Midwest Conference games.  Junior Abby Owens (Grinnell, Iowa) knocked down all three of her team’s three point field goals and scored 14 points off the bench.  She's added extra scoring punch for Knox in the past four games with 37 points, or a 9.3 average.

The Prairie Fire resumes play Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Augustana College.  The Vikings (3-6) dropped their first five games of the season before winning three in a row.  The winning streak was snapped when Aurora University downed Augustana 68-65 Tuesday night in Aurora.

The next home game for the Fire is January 8 at 3:00 p.m. against Midwest Conference rival Monmouth College.