After two years with Seth McDowell as Head Coach of the Knox College women’s basketball team, Emily Carpenter has been announced as the program’s new head coach for the upcoming 2025-26 campaign. With consistent results in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC), Carpenter has the Prairie Fire faithful, excited, and hopeful for the upcoming season.
Carpenter arrives at Knox College after spending three years as the women’s basketball head coach at her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Carpenter’s expertise helped propel the Yellowjackets towards back-to-back UMAC regular-season titles in 2023-24 and 2024-25, also adding a UMAC Tournament title this past season to earn a berth for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Tournament.
Apart from collective success, Carpenter has built an impressive resume of generating individual talent. During her three years at UW-Superior, Carpenter has been able to produce a UMAC Player of the Year, a UMAC Defensive Player of the Year, eight All-UMAC honorees, three members of the league’s All-Defensive Team and eight College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selections.
Carpenter’s success at UW-Superior can even date back to her playing days as a dual-sport athlete in both basketball and softball. In 106 career games as a point guard for the Yellowjackets, Carpenter ended her collegiate career with 336 assists, the second most in program history.
Carpenter ranks second all-time in 3-pointers made (160) and fourth in 3-point field goal percentage (.415) at UW-Superior while also setting program records for 3-pointers made (63) and attempted (151) in her senior campaign.
Her contributions during her four years as a player for the Yellowjackets helped contribute to three regular-season UMAC titles, two of which resulted in UMAC Tournament titles and NCAA Tournament berths.
With the third coaching change in the last five seasons, Carpenter now looks to lead the Prairie Fire to familiar heights. After a past couple of years defined by both historic highs and a recent low, the program now finds itself at a turning point. But how did we get here?
After originally being hired for the head coach position ahead of the 2023-24 campaign, McDowell had some big shoes to fill immediately after former Prairie Fire women’s basketball coach Kira Mowen stepped down in 2023.
In two years as head coach of the Knox women’s basketball team, Mowen led the Prairie Fire to two consecutive conference tournament appearances. In her second season during the 2022-23 season, Mowen helped construct the best Knox women’s basketball team in history.
With achievements including a school-record 22 wins in a single season, lifting the first Midwest Conference Regular-Season and Tournament titles in the program’s history, and earning the program’s first NCAA appearance, Mowen left her name engraved in the Prairie Fire history books.
After Mowen’s departure as head coach, answers swirled about who would be next to lead such a talented team towards new heights. With multiple candidates being interviewed for the coaching gig, McDowell was ultimately chosen to lead the Prairie Fire for the 2023-24 season.
As the Prairie Fire entered the start of the 2024-25 season, the expectations neared all-time highs. Every incredible team has some sort of deadly duo, right? Well, the Prairie Fire’s roster was no exception.
Everyone’s eyes lay on Knox’s dynamic duo of sophomore Bria Medina and junior Kylee Callahan. As a first-year player, Medina quickly cemented herself as one of the top stars in the Midwest Conference, winning the Midwest Conference Newcomer of the Year Award for her performances during the 2023-24 season.
Callahan was already creating her legacy as a member of the Prairie Fire. As a one-time Midwest Conference Regular-Season Champion, a one-time Midwest Conference Tournament Champion, and an All-Midwest Conference first-team selection, Callahan looked to add another possible championship to her impressive resume during her remaining years with the Prairie Fire.
With a dynamic duo, all-around squad talent, and an eye-catching brand of basketball established the year before, the Prairie Fire looked to leave their mark on the entire conference with their gritty defense and impressive brand of fast-paced offense established the year before.
At the start of the 2024-25 season, however, the Prairie Fire surprisingly got off to an underwhelming start. By only winning five out of their first 11 games, Knox found themselves at the end of December nearing their entire loss total from the season before.
Great teams, however, know when to pick it up. After a slow start, the Prairie Fire went on to win six out of their seven games in January, with five of those wins in conference play.
Heading into the last month of the conference, the Prairie Fire needed to pull off several wins to help their chances of advancing to the conference tournament. To everyone’s surprise, Knox ended up with two more losses at the hands of Ripon College and Lawrence University.
With their spot in the conference tournament becoming out of reach, the Prairie Fire aimed for one last push to put their fate in their own hands. With three consecutive wins against Monmouth College, Beloit College, and Illinois College by a combined point differential of 72 points across all three games, the Prairie Fire’s future came down to their final regular-season matchup against Cornell College.
Having defeated the Rams earlier in conference play with a 64-60 win at home, the Prairie Fire’s chances at a win seemed to be leaning in their favor. Knox looked to pull this off in a packed Cornell College gym on their senior night, needing one last win to clinch the fourth and final spot in the Midwest Conference Tournament.
Unfortunately for Knox, a late 17-point turnaround from the Rams quickly turned what seemed like a crucial win for the Prairie Fire into a total mishap. Unable to find an answer to Erin Knowles’ 27-point performance for the Rams, the Prairie Fire ultimately fell short 76-67 to the Cornell Rams.
Remember, if the Prairie Fire pulled off a win in this last regular-season game, their place in the Midwest Conference Tournament would be automatically booked. But they lost. So what happened afterwards?
In every sport, there are specific tiebreakers to help break the deadlock between two teams if tied in the standings. With the first four tiebreakers still unable to put one team over the other, Knox and Cornell found themselves at the very last tiebreaker: a coin flip.
Whenever you hear about a coin flip in sports, you might think about the typical coin toss before every football game. In sports, a team’s fate lies in its own hands 99 percent of the time. For Knox, their fate now rested on Midwest Conference commissioner Heather Benning, as she would be in charge of the 50/50 coin toss.
As Knox College, Cornell College, and the rest of the Midwest Conference watched through Facebook Live, Benning held the prized coin in her hand. If the coin were to land on heads, Cornell College would move on. If the coin were to land on tails, Knox College would see a seventh consecutive appearance in the Midwest Conference Tournament. As she laid the coin above her thumb, the coin slowly turned, turned, and turned in midair. The result: heads. The Prairie Fire’s season ended right in that instant.
Fifth-year Sarina Dacio reflected on the season’s ending, emphasizing that one game didn’t take away from everything the team had built over the past few years.
“When I saw the coin toss wasn’t in our favor, I definitely felt bummed out,” Dacio said. “I thought about how far we’ve come throughout these years and all the amazing achievements we accomplished for this program. I was honestly just thankful for the opportunity to be able to represent Knox with them.”
With an underwhelming season to the program’s standards as of late, the Prairie Fire will now look to bounce back in the 2025-26 campaign with Carpenter at the helm for the Prairie Fire women’s basketball program.
By adding a new coach with an impressive playing career, proven success in coaching, and all-around expertise in the game of basketball, the Knox women’s basketball program looks to be one of the most exciting programs to watch in the upcoming athletic season.
