Box Score SPRINGFIELD, IL --- After a 14-day break between games, the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) Prairie Stars did not miss a step, beating Governors State 98-68 in Springfield for the second largest win of the season. The Prairie Stars improve to 5-6 on the season with the win while the Jaguars drop to 2-16. The scoring came from all angles tonight as five different Prairie Stars scored in double figures and 11 different players scored altogether.
The game opened up with a 5-0 run for the home team as senior guard,
JJ Cravatta, led off the game with a lay-up from
Richard Freeman. Freeman then hit his first jumper of the night before
Logan Gonce hit one of two free throws to take the early lead.
The Prairie Stars would never trail in the game, seeing the lead shrink to as little one but that was followed by an 8-0 run to push the lead back to nine with over 11 minutes remaining in the opening half. The lead stayed under ten for most of the first half until Freeman and
Jamall Millison made back-to-back baskets to push the lead to 12 and then
Zach Steinberg and Gonce scored the next nine points as the Prairie Stars grew their lead to 18.
The half ended with UIS up 51-31 on the Jaguars, while the 51 points was the second most the Prairie Stars had scored in a half this season, second to the 53 they dropped on Robert Morris – Springfield on November 18
th.
While the Jaguars looked for a second half comeback, the Prairie Stars jumped on them early to make sure that didn't happen. UIS came out with a 10-2 run to push the lead to a game high 28 at the time. The run was ended by a Millison three pointer, assisted by Gonce --- one of his six assists on the night. The lead increased to as much as 36 with just under five minutes remaining and never dropped under 20 points in the second half.
Steinberg led the balanced offensive attack with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, and grabbed 12 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. His night wasn't the best shooting performance of the night for the Prairie Stars though, as Cravatta netted 15 points on a perfect 6-for-6 night from the field, including going 3-for-3 from behind the arc. Freeman,
Bahari Amaya, and
Paxton Harmon each recorded ten points while Harmon also grabbed nine boards, coming up just shy of his first double-double.
Millison scored nine points on the night, putting him in a tie with
Dylan Sparkman for the UIS Division II all-time scoring record with 873 points. Millison will look to take over sole possession of that record on Sunday as the Prairie Stars host Robert Morris – Peoria at 4 pm for their final non-conference game of the season.
