Kennedy hit 31-of-36 shots at the free throw line Tuesday night in a 76-67 win over Prairie in a Mississippi Valley Conference boys basketball game at Prairie High School.

"I had no idea we were that good," Kennedy Coach Jon McKowen said of the foul shooting. "It felt good during the game."

The foul shots helped Kennedy (3-1, 2-0) build a 10-point lead by halftime, 31-21, and also enabled the Cougars to hang on when Prairie (2-4, 0-2) rallied from 14 points down to just three points in the fourth quarter.

The Hawks shot 10 of 16 from the free throw line in the game.

"That makes a huge difference," Prairie Coach James Moses said. "It slows the game down and, in essence, builds their confidence.

"Not to take away from Kennedy, they finished more than we did."

Prairie cut the Kennedy lead to 58-55 with just over four minutes left in the contest. Coen Brown had just hit one of his three fourth-quarter treys for the Hawks to get his team close.

"Everything started to click in the fourth quarter," Brown said. "We worked as a team, found the open man and made shots.

"If we did better on defense, we could've won that game."

Kennedy responded to the Prairie run with a pair of foul shots by Anthony Carter, a layup after breaking the press by John Bardsley and a nice inbounds play to Drew Heitland to go back up by nine, 64-55.

Prairie never got closer than six points in the final three minutes.

"We didn't get the one shot we needed to put a little more pressure on them," Moses said. "They got fouled; that can change the mometnum."

Down the stretch, the Cougar defense face-guarded the Hawks on the arc, making sure they didn't have even a semi-open look from 3-point range.

"They are shooting 40 percent from the 3-point line as a team," McKowen said. "That's way too high of a percentage to give them good looks from the 3-point line.

"Usually you have to play hoop-out, we had to play hoop-in."

Prairie hit 11 of 28 from 3-point range for the game (39 percent), but made only one in the final four minutes.

"All week we were watching film and we knew that they like to shoot the 3," Carter said. "So one of our main goals was to contest every 3 they tried to shoot.

"They wanted to shoot the 3, but we didn't want them to. Two is better than three in that situation."

Prairie started taking it to the basket, but couldn't catch up with the Cougars, who hit 16 of 16 at the foul line in the final quarter.

"We got off-pace a little bit early in the fourth quarter," McKowen said. "We were giving up both drives and 3-pointers. You've got to take away one for sure."

Carter led all scorers with 26 points, hitting 12 of 13 at the foul line. He said McKowen has told the team to be aggressive with the new emphasis by the referees on hand-checking.

"Always be aggressive and look for the refs to call that and get to the line," Carter said. "We were attacking the basket as much as we could."

Bryton Heisler had 16 points and seven rebounds, and Zach Daniels added 11 points for Kennedy.

Prairie adjusted to the whistles in the second half. After shooting just 1 of 2 at the foul line in the first two quarters, the Hawks were 9 of 14 in the second half.

"We made some adjustments," Moses said. "Some of our guys were reaching too much. We've got to be disciplined and move with our feet.

"The refs did a good job. But I'd like us to shoot 25 to 30 times."

Brown led Prairie with 13 points off the bench. Kentrel Smith had 12 points, JoJo Simpson 11 points and Michael Mims 10 points.

"We didn't get back on defense and didn't communicate as well as we could have," Brown said. "Then shots weren't falling for us, and we got out of sync."

Moses said the inside game has to come around to complement the 3-point shooting.

"If we don't establish that inside game, we don't have the balance we need," he said. "Kennedy created balance, and got the end result. A win."

KENNEDY (76): Zach Daniels 3-8 4-5 11, Anthony Carter 7-12 12-13 26, Cole Murdock 1-6 2-2 5, Bryton Heisler 4-10 8-8 16, Drew Heitland 1-3 4-5 6, John Bardsley 3-5 1-2 8, Brandon Buck 0-1 0-0 0, Austin Holzer 1-4 0-1 2, JB Bil 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 21-50 31-36 76.

PRAIRIE (67): Michael Mims 3-9 2-4 10, Austin Fisher 2-3 2-2 7, Bryce Meeker 0-2 0-0 0, Mitchell Lorenz 0-4 0-0 0, JoJo Simpson 5-8 0-2 11, Dylan Kuchemann 1-1 0-0 2, Coen Brown 5-7 0-0 13, Jalen Rima 1-2 0-0 2, Cal Clark 2-5 2-3 8, Austin Schrader 1-2 0-0 2, Kentrel Smith 3-7 4-5 12. Totals 23-50 10-16 67.

Halftime - Kennedy 31, Prairie 21. 3-point goals - Kennedy 3-10 (Daniels 1-3, Murdock 1-5, Heisler 0-1, Bardsley 1-1), Prairie 11-28 (Mims 2-6, Fisher 1-2, Lorenz 0-3, Simpson 1-3, Brown 3-5, Clark 2-4, Schrader 0-1, Smith 2-4). Rebounds - Kennedy 30 (Heisler 7, Heitland 6, Carter 5), Prairie 27 (Meeker 5, Simpson 5). Turnovers - Kennedy 6, Prairie 13. Total fouls - Kennedy 15, Prairie 28. Fouled out - Brown.