GREENVILLE, Illinois - The Knox Prairie Fire women's basketball team fell to the Greenville Panthers this Saturday, losing 72-55 in a scrappy game. The loss puts the Prairie Fire's record on the season at 2-5, as the team looks to transition to conference play.
Knox got off to a rough start by their standards, being outscored heavily in the first half as they failed to click on either side of the ball. The Prairie Fire went only 8-for-37 from the field and 1-for-12 from beyond the arc, failing to find any rhythm during their offensive possessions. On the other side of the ball, Knox managed to lock down the Greenville bench players, but the Panthers' starters found lanes to drive the ball and pad their lead. Markesha Johnson had a productive half off the bench, scoring 8 points and pulling down 3 rebounds. Unfortunately, the Prairie Fire found themselves down 41-19 at halftime, with a steep deficit staring them in the face.
After reconvening from the locker room, Knox was determined to not let the game get away from them any further. The Prairie Fire gathered rebounds ferociously and converted those boards into points on the other end of the court. Catessa Duran used her trademark post moves to get open shots on her way to score 12 points for the game, while also swatting away 4 shots that the Panthers put up. Knox outscored Greenville in both the third and fourth quarter, and although the gap was too large for them to overcome, the team managed to put together positive possessions to build off of.
"Without a few players tonight was a challenge to test our adversity. The second half I believe we came back and fought extremely hard. We actually won the second half," said head coach Kira Mowen. "However, basketball is a game of two halves and frankly we did not show up at all coming out of the gates. We will as a program put two full halves together. Right now that is our focus as we head to Lawrence on Wednesday. We aren't hanging our heads yet we are learning how to fight and claw our way back to being a team you can't overlook."
The Prairie Fire will attempt to break their losing streak when they travel to Appleton to face Lawrence University this Wednesday at 6:00 p.m.
