The Principia Panthers traveled to Fulton, MO for their fourth conference game of the young season versus the Westminster College Blue Jays. Both teams came into the game with a 2-1 record in conference play making this the game of the week. Westminster has been known to be a challenging place to play for Principia, and this proved to be true once again as Principia fell 53-73.
The game started off extremely slow for both teams as each offense struggled to score. Principia looked sluggish and out of sync offensively but kept themselves in the game with some lockdown defense. Principia scored first in the game and it took Westminster 3 minutes to get their first basket as both teams attempted to settle in to the game. Westminster got rolling after their first make and were able to take a 12-5 lead a few minutes later with sloppy offensive play by the Panthers. The Panthers showed their fight as they quickly bounced back from this 7 point deficit. A three pointer by freshman
Payton Sellers gave the lead back to Principia with a score of 15-14 with 9 minutes remaining in the first half. For the next 7 minutes both teams battled back and forth exchanging the lead multiple times until the final 1:30 of the half. Several missed shots and a turnover followed by a pair of three pointers by the Blue Jays allowed Westminster to take a 7 point lead into the second half.
The second half started off similar to the first half for the Panthers as the offensive struggles continued. Westminster was able to push their lead to 11 right out of the gates with several made free throws as foul trouble began to creep up on the Panthers. After a slow start Principia managed to hang tough and cut the lead down to 6 a few minutes later. Both teams played evenly for a stretch as the Westminster lead hung around 7 points. A sequence of fouls and missed shots by Principia allowed Westminster to blow open the game with timely 3 point shots on their end. At about the 12 minute mark Westminster held a 15 point advantage. Following a time out Principia fought right back as
Micah Paulson caught fire and hit back to back three pointers to quickly cut the lead back to single digits. Unfortunately the very next possession proved to be the dagger as the Blue Jays hit a 30 foot prayer with 1 second left on the shot clock to thwart the comeback.
Westminster would not look back for the rest of the game as Principia left it all out on the court but ultimately fell 53-73. Principia now stands at 2-2 in conference play.
He said it
"We didn't have our best stuff today, but I was proud of the fight, specifically defensively. We struggled to score the ball but kept our intensity high on the defensive side to keep us in the game. Tough one to swallow going into break but we will definitely learn from this and bounce back."
Matt Jones – Assistant Coach
Up Next
Principia heads into Christmas Break but gets no days off as they head to Hawaii to play in the Hawaii Classic tournament. The first game is Monday December 18
th versus UC Santa Cruz, tipoff is at 5:45 HAST / 10:45 CST.
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