Eureka, IL—The Principia Men's basketball team traveled to Eureka, IL to take on the Eureka College Red Devils in their latest SLIAC conference matchup. After a very competitive first half, the Panthers would find themselves in foul trouble and struggle to get stops on the defensive end which would result in a road loss at the hands of the Red Devils by a score of 79-96.
The Panthers would get off to somewhat of a sluggish start in this one as they traded baskets with the Red Devils early on in the contest. Senior
TreVaughn Goodman would get the scoring started for the Panthers as he slashed down the lane and finished a tough lay-up to give the Panthers a quick 2-0 lead, but Eureka's big man Jaedon Banks would respond with a bucket of his own, and the two teams would be off to the races after that. Throughout much of the first half, the Panthers would be able to keep up with the scoring of Eureka as both teams scored early and often during the half. For the Panthers, Goodman seemed unstoppable in the first half as he would maneuver his way through the Red Devil defense with ease, finishing with 16 points in the first half. Sophomore
Kevin Wingert also came to play today as he would knock down some crucial baskets to keep the Panthers within striking distance of the Red Devils as they started to build a lead as the half wore on. After a stretch of bad defense for the Panthers to end the half, Eureka would head into the locker room leading by a score of 50-37.
Coming out of the half, the Panthers goal was to slowly cut down the Red Devil lead and get themselves back into the game. For the first five minutes of the half, they were able to do just that as the Panthers defense would string multiple stops together, and lay-ups from
Clark Davidson and
TreVaughn Goodman, along with a deep 3-pointer from
Payton Sellers would see the Red Devil lead cut to just 9 points forcing a quick timeout from the Red Devil bench. After that timeout however, the Panthers comeback would falter as Eureka would use a combination of stingy defense and solid offense to stretch their lead to as many as 20, and the Panthers would be unable to dig themselves out of the hole. After the final buzzer sounded, the Panthers would fall to the Red devils by a score of 79-96.
Good to Know—In today's game, the Panther's
TreVaughn Goodman became the NCAA era all-time leading scorer for Principia College. This means that since Principia moved from an NAIA school to a NCAA Division III school, Goodman has scored the most points of any Principia basketball player during their career since the move to Division III, passing former teammate
Micah Paulson who graduated last year. Goodman finished the night with 26 points bringing his running total to 1,592 points and counting with seven games left in his collegiate career.
Up Next—The Panthers will be on the road again for their next conference matchup as they travel to Carlinville, IL to take on the Blackburn College Beavers at 3:00 pm this Saturday afternoon.
