ELSAH, ILL. -- Tonight the Principia College women's basketball team faced the Webster University Gorloks in their second meeting of the season.  Having lost to Webster by 24 in their previous meeting, Principia was looking to redeem themselves.  The first half though did not look promising.  Principia was cold from the field, and despite scoring on their first possession, could not get their shots to fall.  Prin shot just 3 for 21 from the field in the first 20 minutes, scoring 6 points off real buckets and 2 from the charity stripe.  On the defensive end Principia took care of business, holding Webster to just 26% from the field, but their offensive woes, coupled with a huge rebounding disparity (Prin got out-rebounded 10-24 in the 1st half) had the Panthers down 17 at halftime with a score of 25-8.

In the 2nd half though, the home crowd got to see more glimpses of what Lady Panther basketball is really about.  In fact, Principia won the 2nd half scoring 29 to Webster's 24, and although this was not enough to erase the 1st half deficit, Principia showed that they are certainly capable of playing solid, tough basketball.  The rebounding gap continued (the total was 26 Principia boards to Webster's 42) but some solid shooting from the free throw line kept the Panthers in the game.  In fact, Prin achieved a season team goal by shooting 75% from the line (21 of 28).  

Clearly, the offensive struggles of the 1st half kept Principia's usual scorers from putting up their normal numbers.  Junior captain Sarah Corbitt was tasked with bringing the ball up under pressure all game long, doing another fantastic job, but limiting her to just 5 points.  She did however have a game high 6 assists, and shot a solid 3 for 4 from the line.  Freshman forward Torie DeNicholas another consistent scorer was limited by foul trouble, keeping her to just 6 points.  Freshman forward Karina Olsen yet again showed her dominance on the boards, snagging almost half of Principia's rebounds with 10 total.  But the real statistical shout-out goes to senior captain Lindsay Sydness.  With 21 points and 10 boards, Sydness led the team in both scoring and rebounding tonight.  But to round out her triple-double, Sydness added a whopping 17 blocks to her stat line.  As the leading shot blocker in the nation for the past two seasons, her defensive dominance comes as no surprise, but with the total of 17, Sydness set a personal, school and conference record with her performance tonight.  She was one away from tying the overall DIII record, which is 18, set in 1995.

Principia plays next on Thursday, February 9th in St. Louis against the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.  Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 pm.