Box Score
Galesburg, Ill. – A spirited effort by the undersized Prairie Fire wasn't enough to take down Cornell College in the first Midwest Conference game for both schools on Wednesday night at Memorial Gym.
Knox fought back from an 8-0 start to the game by Cornell and tied it at 10-10 with 14:29 remaining. The Prairie Fire continued to claw away and grabbed their first lead, 15-14, on a 3-pointer by junior
Brittney Price (Wyoming, IL, Stark County) at the 11:14 mark.
Knox (1-4, 0-1 MWC) led by as many as six points (40-34) on a pair of made free throws by sophomore
Jamie Blue (Urbana, IL, University) with 45 seconds left in the first half. The Rams split a pair of free throws to trim the deficit to 40-35 at the intermission.
The Prairie Fire frustrated Cornell, forcing 16 turnovers while allowing a tall and deep Rams team to shoot just 30 percent in the first half.
Trailing Knox 52-49, defending Midwest Conference champion Cornell tied the game at 52-52 with a little more than 14:00 to play – the first three points of a 31-9 run that resulted in an 80-61 advantage with 5:55 left.
The Rams (4-1, 1-0 MWC) hit 56 percent of their second half shots and finished the game at 44 percent. The Prairie Fire shot 36 percent overall and sank 7-of-24 attempts from 3-point range.
Cornell had its way on the glass, outrebounding Knox 65-30. Junior Taylor Dicus, an All-MWC forward for the Rams last season, had a huge game with 39 points and 26 rebounds.
Senior
Chantal Heckman (Chicago, IL, Latin) matched her career-high with 22 points and grabbed six rebounds for the Prairie Fire. Junior
Jessica Howard (Galesburg, IL, Galesburg) was 3-for-3 from behind the 3-point line and also reached double-figures with 13 points. Blue added 11 points and six rebounds.
View photos from the game
here
Knox visits Lake Forest College for a Midwest Conference game on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. The game will be streamed live online at
http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/lfc.portal#
Follow Prairie Fire athletics on
Twitter and
Facebook
