GALESBURG, Illinois - The Prairie Fire women's basketball team defeated Illinois College in the final seconds of a hard fought conference game on Tuesday night.
The game saw seven ties and 20 lead changes with Knox trailing by three with 54 seconds left. A pair of free throws made by Catessa Duran brought the deficit to just one and then Kylee Callahan nailed two more free throws to give Knox the lead with 5.4 seconds left and the Prairie Fire held on for the victory.
Callahan led Knox with 23 points, Duran added 13. Julian Vinluan chipped in 10 points and Kristin Herndon scored eight points and hauled in nine rebounds.
"I have no words, I am extremely thankful and grateful for this team and how hard they have worked all season," said head coach Kira Mowen. "It is a testament to their character and the type of young women they are becoming. We stuck together through what looked inevitable and came out on top. Illinois College is very well coached and definitely packs a challenging punch that we had to handle. They have three high level players that can do a little of everything so defensively we had to fix that tonight. I'm proud but I know we can't stop here. We are going to focus on Ripon for the next three days."
With the win over Illinois College tonight, the Prairie Fire women's basketball team claimed at least a share of the regular season Midwest Conference (MWC) title. This is the first regular season title for Knox since the league changed from divisional play before the 1998-99 season. The Prairie Fire were the number one seed in the South Division in 1988-89.
Knox already claimed a spot in their third consecutive MWC Tournament and fourth in the last five seasons. Hosting responsibilities will be up for grabs on Saturday when Knox travels to Ripon for the final game of the regular season. The Prairie Fire are 15-0 in league play, while Ripon's only loss came at the hands of Knox on December 10.
The Prairie Fire extended their program record in overall wins to 20 tonight and their program best winning streak to 14 games. Knox has won 113 games in the last seven seasons, including 83 in conference play.
