Box Score
The No. 6 Panthers (13-0, 4-0 Great Lakes Valley Conference) capitalized on an 11-point halftime lead to win their second straight road game, a 74-61 win over Illinois-Springfield.
The Prairie Stars (4-9, 2-3 GLVC) put together a strong surge in the second half and got as close as four, but KWC went on a 7-0 run to go back up by 11 near the midway point of the second half to fend off Illinois-Springfield.
"Once we got it back up to 10, 11, 12, I felt OK," coach Todd Lee said. "We were having trouble scoring. It's just that we didn't finish the (first) half the right way. They made two threes on us. We came out in the second half and I don't think we were ready to play those first two minutes and they cut it pretty quick.
"We've got to do a better job of getting ready and I've got to do a better job of getting them ready."
It was a mix of young and old that carried the Panthers on Saturday.
Freshman guard Lucas Barker led the way with 19 points, six assists and five rebounds.
Senior guard Kreig Oxley broke out with a season-high 17 points and also dished out three assists and grabbed two rebounds.
Barker and Oxley were a combined 7-of-14 from 3-point range.
"They're the only two guys who made threes for us," Lee said. "We need both of them to shoot the ball well. Kreig got going in the first half. We ran a couple things for him, and he had some open looks and knocked those down, which is great to see.
"I thought both of them played a good floor game and obviously shot the ball very well."
KWC dominated the Prairie Stars in just about every facet, most notably on the glass. The Panthers won the rebounding battle, 34-20.
Illinois-Springfield actually shot a better percentage than KWC, 52.2 percent to the Panthers' 45.5 percent, but KWC made 17-of-19 free throws to make up for it.
The Prairie Stars shot just seven free throws and made three.
Another thing KWC did well, Lee said, was limiting the effectiveness of Illinois-Springfield forward Dylan Sparkman, who was the only Prairie Stars starter averaging in double figures.
The 6-foot-10, 260-pound forward finished with just one rebound. KWC also got him in foul trouble, as he finished the game with four fouls.
"He's a big, wide-bodied strong kid," Lee said. "I thought (Dazmond Starke) and (Dominique Dawson) did a great job on him. They fronted him, made him work for his position, they got back around."
"If he did catch the ball, what we wanted to do when he bounced it was to go attack him…when he bounced the ball I thought our guards did a good job of stripping him of the ball and digging it out of there."
Perhaps the only stain on KWC's solid performance on Saturday was Starke suffering a right ankle injury toward the end of the first half. He did return to action in the second half, though, and score 14 points and grabbed seven rebounds.
"He turned his ankle. He came down on someone's foot," Lee said. "But he went back in the game. It's going to be swollen and a little sore, but he's going to get some treatment and some ice and hopefully be ready to go Monday."
