RIPON, Wisconsin—The Prairie Fire women's basketball team went down to the wire with the Midwest Conference regular season co-champions in a 43-42 loss to Cornell on Friday evening.
In their first conference tournament since the 1996-97 season, Knox (16-9) held the number two offense in the league to their lowest score of the season. The score remained close throughout the game, with the Rams and Prairie Fire exchanging leads in the second half.
Cornell led by four early in the first quarter, but Knox battled back to a one-point deficit heading into the second quarter. The Rams jumped back up to a four-point lead in the second stanza, but could not pull away any further. Cornell took a 22-19 lead into halftime.
The Prairie Fire came out strong in the third quarter to cut the deficit to one again and then force a tie with 4:07 remaining in the period. At the conclusion of the third quarter Knox trailed by one, outscoring the Rams 11-9 for the period. The Prairie Fire retook the lead early in the final quarter with four straight points, but Cornell hit a trey to tie the game 34-all with 7:09 to play.
Over the next few minutes the teams went back and forth with Knox gaining a three-point advantage with 3:09 left in the game. The Rams reeled off six straight points to take a 43-40 lead with just over a minute left on the clock. A bucket by Jarrelyn McCall brought the score to within one with 43 seconds remaining and a steal by Hailey Leinart gave Knox the ball with 16 seconds left. However, the Prairie Fire were unable to get off a shot to extend their season.
McCall finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds in 35 minutes. Kyra Huffman poured in eight points and grabbed nine boards and Morgan Potter chipped in six points and nine rebounds. Hailey Leinart hit a pair of three-pointers to finish with eight points in the final game of her career.
The Prairie Fire conclude their season with the most conference wins in school history and the most total wins since the 1989-90 season. They will bring back all five starters and most of the team next season as they look to make back-to-back Midwest Conference Tournament appearances for the first time since the 1987-90 teams made three straight appearances.
