The Millikin women's basketball team used a late rally to defeat Cornell College 74-71 on Dec. 22 at the Griswold Center.  Millikin is now 8-3 on the season while Cornell falls to 4-6.

          After a back and forth first 10 minutes of the game Cornell took the lead with about 10 minutes left in the first session and built a 42-29 advantage over the Big Blue at the half.

Millikin slowly crawled back into the game in the second half, but the Rams held the lead until three minutes left the ball game when Millikin tied the game on a jumper by Nikki Tipsword to make it 68-68.  Millikin then took a 70-68 advantage with 2:15 left to play on a bucket from Heather Pruemer.  Kathryn Schilling then answered back for Cornell with a basket and a free throw to put Cornell up 71-70 with just over two minutes left in the game.  Another Pruemer basket a few seconds later gave Millikin the its final lead.  Tipsword would add some insurance with a jumper with 34 seconds to left to give the Big Blue its final three point margin.

          Pruemer was instrumental in the Big Blue's comeback scoring 19 of her team high 23 points in the second half.  Julia Robert added 15 for Millikin and Tipsword scored 13 points including 11 in the second half.  Tipsword had a team high 10 rebounds.

          Cornell's Rikki Mulloy had a game high 27 points.  Camille Marie-Lidd had 13 points for the Rams.

          Millikin had a slight edge in shooting hitting on 43 percent of its shots while Cornell hit on 42 percent.  Despite Cornell's height advantage, the Big Blue out rebounded the Rams 44-31 grabbing 27 rebounds in the second half. 

          Millikin is off until Jan. 4 when they open CCIW play hosting Augustana.  The women's game will start at 5:30 p.m. and will be followed by the men's conference opener at 7:30 p.m.