WAVERLY, Iowa — Playing its second game in as many days at the Wartburg Tip-Off Tournament to open the season, the Knox College women's basketball team could not quite pull off a second-half comeback against future Midwest Conference school Luther College in an 86-81 defeat at Levick Arena on Saturday afternoon. Junior Bria Medina poured in 31 points to no avail for the Prairie Fire (0-2), while Abigail Panka led 10 players who scored for the Norse (1-1) with 18 points.

Luther led for nearly the entire first quarter, save for when Medina dropped in a layup on the break for a 14-13 Knox edge. But the Norse responded by scoring the next 14 points, a run that first-year Xiyah Yarbrough brought to an end with the Prairie Fire's first 3-pointer of the season. By the end of the stanza, Luther sported a 29-19 advantage.

Yarbrough got the second quarter started right for the Prairie Fire with another triple, but the Norse kept adding to their lead until it had ballooned to 20 at 50-30. Knox fought back with a 9-0 run — five courtesy of Medina — and by the intermission, the Prairie Fire deficit was at 13, 54-41.

Though Medina began the second half with a bucket, Luther went on another run, scoring 11 straight points to give the Norse their largest lead of the contest at 65-43. When the fourth quarter began, Knox found itself down 17, 69-52, and it would have been easy to simply play out the string and accept defeat. But the Fire got fired up instead, ripping off a 16-0 run in a four-minute span — including 12 straight by Medina — suddenly turning the game into a one-possession contest at 77-74 with 3:21 to play.

Sophomore Izzy Robinson kept Knox's hopes alive with a 3-pointer to bring the difference back to three points at 84-81 with 10 seconds to go, but Luther's Katie Hardtke converted two free throws to seal the Norse victory.

• Medina hit 11-of-20 field goals with a 3-pointer and 8-of-12 at the line to account for her 31 points, her third career 30-point game.
• Both sophomore Nayeli Nidez Acuña (13 points, 11 rebounds) and senior Kylee Callahan (10 points, 12 rebounds) registered double-doubles for the Prairie Fire, with Callahan falling three assists shy of a triple-double.
• Callahan is now Knox's all-time leader in career assists (274) after dishing out seven today.
• Robinson was the fourth Knox player to score in double figures with a career-high 15 points.
• While the Prairie Fire held a 54-40 advantage on the boards, free throw and turnover woes were their downfall as the team combined to convert just 13-of-29 (.448) at the foul line while coughing the ball up 28 times.

The start of Knox's season won't get any easier in its next game as the team travels to Aurora University (2-0), which won its first two games by an average of 45 points. The game tips off at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 12 and will be streamed live with stats available through PrairieFire.Knox.edu, the official website of Knox College athletics, courtesy of Aurora.