The Knox College women’s basketball team withstood a pair of second-half runs by Lawrence University to post a 90-79 Midwest Conference victory over the Vikings on Saturday at Alexander Gymnasium.
Jodi Marver paced Knox (1-3, 1-2 MWC) with 21 points. Becky Duffy added 19 points for the Prairie Fire and hit 15 of 18 shots from the foul line.
Lawrence (0-4, 0-3) had four players score in double figures, led by Amber Lisowe with 18. Kassidy Rinehart added 15 points, and Alex Deshler had another double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Freshman Jeannine Schulz also scored 12 points for the Vikings.
Knox jumped out to a huge lead early in the game and the Prairie Fire was up 28-9 with 11:23 left in the opening half. Knox would lead by as many as 23 points in the first half before the Vikings trimmed the lead to 47-31 at the break.
Lawrence opened the second half on a 10-2 run, with Katie Schumacher and Schulz scoring four points apiece, to cut the lead to 49-41 with 14:14 left.
Knox then slowly started to pull away again, and the Prairie Fire built the lead back to as many as 20 points, the last time with 4:50 remaining.
Lawrence mounted another charge, going on a 16-3 run to cut the lead to 80-73 with 2:18 remaining. Lisowe and Reinhart scored six points apiece during the run, which was capped by Deshler’s layup.
Knox won the game from the foul line from this point as Duffy went 10-for-10 from the charity stripe in the final 1:44 to seal the victory.