GALESBURG, Illinois - The Prairie Fire men's basketball team dropped a Midwest Conference game to Lawrence 72-69 on Tuesday night.
Sean Gallery got the scoring going for Knox with a jumper in the first 13 seconds of the game and the Prairie Fire jumped out to a 6-2 lead. The Vikings stormed back to take a 7-6 lead. After some back and forth, Lawrence jumped out to a 21-14 lead. Knox went on a 7-0 run to knot the score back up. The teams exchanged leads over the next few minutes and the game went into halftime in a 32-32 tie.
The first nine minutes of the second half were more of the same, but the Vikings pulled away by 11 with 9:37 left to play. The Prairie Fire quickly responded with a 12-0 run to take the lead. The final minutes were more of the same, with the teams exchanging leads. Lawrence led by six with 19 seconds remaining, but Gallery hit a three-pointer to cut the lead in half. Knox got the ball back with one more chance, but missed the final three-point attempt.
Gallery led Knox with 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Duane Goodman, Jr. tallied 13 points, while Jordan Rayner and Malcolm Bray each added 10.
"We played a solid game for most of the night," said head coach Ben Davis. "We need to shoot better overall, especially from the free throw line."
The Prairie Fire return to action as they host Cornell on February 5.