GALESBURG, Illinois—The Prairie Fire women's basketball team fell to Illinois College 70-58 in their first home basketball game in over a year.
 
The Prairie Fire struck first when Juliana Vinluan drew a foul and sunk a pair of free throws just over a minute into the game. The Lady Blues jumped out to a 9-4 lead about midway through the first quarter, but Knox chipped away at the lead and trailed only 14-13 with 2:15 to play in the period. Illinois College closed the quarter on a 4-1 run to take a four point lead into the second quarter.
 
The Lady Blues built up a six point lead early in the second period, but Knox stormed back to tie the game at 24-24 midway through the quarter. After some back-and-forth Vinluan hit a jumper late in the half, but Illinois College held a narrow 29-28 heading into halftime.
 
The Prairie Fire came out firing on all cylinders in the second half with Catessa Duran hitting a short jumper and Sarina Dacio knocking down a three-pointer to give Knox a 33-29 lead. The teams exchanged leads for the majority of the quarter, but the Lady Blues pulled away in the last few minutes to lead 48-44 heading into the final quarter.
 
Kristin Herndon cut the Illinois College lead to two in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, but the Lady Blues soon built up a double-digit lead and held on for the 70-58 victory.
 
Dacio led the Prairie Fire with 18 points, shooting 4-of-8 from long-range. Kristin Herndon added 11 points and eight rebounds and Juliana Vinluan put up 10 points.
 
"We were right there today," said head coach Emily Cline. "We brought a lot of the lessons we learned yesterday to this game. I was pleased with our progression."
 
Knox returns to action next Sunday as they host Lake Forest College.