Box Score

Galesburg, IL - The Prairie Fire, to its credit, came ready to battle against Ripon College, the second-place team in the conference, less than 24 hours after the gut-wrenching loss.

The Red Hawks and Prairie Fire found themselves tied on 12 different occasions in the game, but the play of All-Midwest Conference First-Team guard Scott Gillespie -- son of longtime Ripon Coach Bob Gillespie -- was the difference in the 72-68 Red Hawks win.

Ripon (12-8, 10-5 MWC) scored the first seven points of the game.  The Fire answered the Red Hawk run with an 11-2 spurt to take a two-point lead (11-9) at the 15:45 mark of the first half.  Knox took its biggest lead at 21-15 when junior Tanner Carlson (Annawan, IL, Annawan) scored at the 10:47 mark.  The Red Hawks came back with six consecutive points to force a 21-21 tie with 8:42 to go in the half.

A 5-0 run by Ripon, capped by two Aris Wurtz free-throws, gave the visitors a 30-25 advantage with 5:00 before intermission. 

The see-saw contest continued when the Prairie Fire scored 12 of the next 18 points for a 37-36 lead at the 1:49 mark.  That lead would hold until Gillespie made a shot just before the halftime buzzer to put Ripon on top 38-37.

The first 10 minutes of the second half was also a back-and-forth affair.  The teams tied for the 12th and final time at 54-54 when Gillespie split a pair of free-throws and the Fire got baskets from sophomore Lukas Shaw (Portland, OR, U.S. Grant) and junior Joe Kozak (Park Ridge, IL, Maine South) to take a 58-55 lead with 8:17 to go in the contest.

Gillespie then went to work for the Hawks, scoring six points during a 12-2 run that proved to be the difference in the game and gave Ripon a 67-60 lead with 2:20 on the clock.  Knox didn't wilt, scoring five straight points to make it a one possession game at 67-65 with 53 seconds to play. 

Gillespie stuck another key jumper for a four-point Red Hawks lead with 22 seconds left.  A foul by Wurtz could have been disastrous for Ripon.  He made contact with junior Ben Wetherbee (Sydney, Australia, Woodstock), among the best free throw shooters in the MWC, during a long shot attempt with 10 seconds to play.  Wetherbee, shooting 97 percent from the stripe, drained all three foul shots to trim the deficit to 70-68.

Wetherbee was forced to foul to stop the clock. The Red Hawks' Zach Meulemans made a pair of clutch free throws to seal the win.

The loss was the 18th straight for the Prairie Fire (1-18, 0-15 MWC), who have dropped six games this season by five or fewer points.  The last six losses have been by an average of six points, including an 80-68 setback against Illinois College on January 29 at Memorial Gym that was a close game until the last few minutes.

Gillespie scored a game-high 24 points in 38 minutes of playing time for Ripon, which shot nearly 48 percent overall and committed just 10 turnovers.  Wurtz added 18 points, all but four coming in the first half, and Muelemans contributed 11.

Knox, which shot 46 percent, was led by Wetherbee's 12 points.  Five other players scored at least eight points for the Prairie Fire.  Among them was senior Matt Goedeke (Yates City, Illinois, Farmington), who came off the bench to score eight points and corral a game-high 10 rebounds.

Knox plays its next game at Illinois College (13-6, 9-5 MWC), which is alone in third place in the conference standings.  The Blueboys have been very good on their home court, winning eight of 10 games so far this season.