GALESBURG, Ill. — The Knox College women's basketball team began the game with runs of seven, 10 and 20 points and cruised to a 88-52 victory over visiting Monmouth College in Midwest Conference action on Saturday afternoon at Memorial Gymnasium. Junior Bria Medina, honored prior to the game for surpassing 1,000 career points earlier this season, celebrated by producing a game-high 31 points to lead the Prairie Fire (3-4, 2-1 MWC) to the victory, while the Fighting Scots fell to 2-5 overall and 0-2 in league play.

Medina scored the game's first four points with a pair of layups before her cousin, senior Kylee Callahan, drilled a 3-pointer for a quick 7-0 lead. Monmouth responded with seven points of its own, only to have Knox rattle off the next 10 points, beginning with a triple by sophomore Izzy Robinson and capped by another from the team's newest member, junior transfer Brook Pieper, for a 17-7 advantage.

When the Fighting Scots hit their next two shots to close within six, the Fire roared back with 10 points in the final 1:40 of the first quarter. That run included another trey from Pieper and another from first-year Xiyah Yarbrough, leaving Knox with a 27-11 lead.

The second quarter began the same way the first one ended — with a 10-point Prairie Fire run — as the difference ballooned to 26. Monmouth would never get any closer than 20 the rest of the way.

It was Medina who first pushed Knox's advantage to over 30 with one of her 10 field goals (in just 13 attempts) at 65-34 midway through the third quarter. In the final period, the Prairie Fire put together one more extended run, rattling off 15 consecutive points as Medina provided seven of them before subbing out one last time. Pieper's third and final 3-pointer of the game briefly pushed the Knox lead to 40 at 88-48 before Monmouth tallied the last two buckets.

• The Knox defense held the Fighting Scots to a paltry 26.4 percent from the floor (19-of-72) and 18.8 percent (3-of-16) from distance, while the Fire hit an even 50 percent (32-of-64) of their field goals with seven 3-pointers.
• Not only did Medina connect on 10-of-13 field goals (.769), she also converted all 11 of her free throws, the most made by a Prairie Fire player without a miss since Jarrelyn McCall hit 11-of-11 in an overtime win over Lake Forest on Jan. 27, 2018.
• Medina, who entered the game as the fourth-leading scorer in Division III women's hoops, topped 30 points in a game for the fifth time in her career, most in program history, and the third time this season.
• Both Callahan and sophomore Nayeli Nidez Acuña missed out on a double-double with nine rebounds apiece to go with 13 and 10 points, respectively, while Robinson also had 10 points.
• Pieper finished her Knox debut with nine points, eight rebounds and three assists off the bench.
• The Prairie Fire have won the last seven meetings with Monmouth.

Knox returns to the court on Tuesday, Dec. 9, when the Fire play at Millikin University (3-4) at the Griswold Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., and the game will be streamed live with stats available through PrairieFire.Knox.edu, the official website of Knox College Athletics, courtesy of Millikin.