GALESBURG, Illinois — The Knox Prairie Fire men’s basketball team fell to the Maranatha Baptist Sabercats 72-67 on Thursday night.
The Prairie fire struck first with a jumper from Zach Lowe setting up a 2-0 lead in the beginning of the first half. Maranatha Baptist quickly took the lead with a three-pointer on the very next possession.
The first half was close the entire 20 minutes of play. With the highest lead being five points by Maranatha Baptist and a total of nine lead changes neither team was able to assert dominance in the first. The half ended with the Sabercats up 29-27.
Maranatha Baptist came out to ready to go in the second. Knox was able to take a quick one point lead at the beginning of the half off of a free throw by Eric Thompson and a jumper by Deryk Ruple, but it was not enough for the Prairie Fire as the Sabercats took a 10 point lead with 9:10 left to play.
The Prairie Fire found a spark late in the game with four steals and a 15-4 run in just over three minutes of play to cut the lead down to just one point. The Sabercats responded with a run of their own and pulled away to win the game.
Zach Lowe led Knox with 14 points and added three rebounds. Eric Thompson notched 10 rebounds and three blocks and Ethan Meeker tallied four assists. Deryk Ruple picked up 10 points as well.
“We had our chances tonight,” said head coach Ben Davis. “We did not shoot the ball as well as we have been, but we will look to get back to work to prepare for conference.”
Knox travels to Lawrence on December 4 to being Midwest Conference play.
