No matter who would have won Thursday's D-League game at Memorial Coliseum, it was still going to be an entertaining night.

It just made it better for 2,377 that the Ants won.

In a game that had 16 lead changes and a dozen ties, the Ants lost a lead, got it back, then withstood a furious barrage of three-pointers at the end to defeat Springfield 106-105.

Springfield shot an astounding 14 of 25 from three-point range, and had two guys combine for 61 points off the bench - 33 from Jerry Smith and 28 from Lance Hurdle.

And yet Fort Wayne withstood the storm, went on a 12-2 run late in the game, and got a spectacular game from Huntington North native Chris Kramer.

If Kramer has had a better game, I haven't seen it. The Purdue guard scored 20 points, had 7 rebounds, was 5 of 7 from the floor, 10 of 13 from the free throw line, added eight assists and had five steals in 38 1/2 minutes. And he didn't have a turnover.

Darnell Lazare had 28 points, Marvin Phillips had 20, and Ron Howard, one of the team's favorite sons who returned to Fort Wayne after playing in Australia, played his first game of the season with the Ants and had 13 points, including making the game-winning free throws with 3.1 seconds left.