GALESBURG, IL – The Principia Women's Basketball team opened up their 2023-24 season at Knox College on Monday evening. The Panthers were taking on an already battle-tested Prairie Fire team who had completed two games this season including a triple overtime thriller with Westminster.
Knox has a new coach and played a very up-tempo style which Principia had a hard time adjusting to in their first game of the season. The Prairie Fire jumped out quick in the first quarter with a 29-15 run and never looked back, finishing with a 91-66 win over the Panthers.
This season, the Panthers have one of their biggest rosters in program history and took advantage of the opening contest to get all 14 active players into the game, with 11 of them scoring. Sophomore
Taylor Brown had a team-high 12 points, while sophomore transfer
Trinniti Matthews led the Panthers with 10 rebounds in her Principia debut. The 2 inactive players for the day (senior
Paige Fowler and sophomore transfer
Angele Gassama Diousse) will both be active for Wednesday's game after injuries kept them out of the opener.
Despite the loss, Coach Ro found plenty to be excited about moving forward. "We fought all game long and learned a lot of lessons," he said. "These women never stopped supporting each other and being great teammates. We need to get back to the basics defensively, but it is early in the season. Knox is a very good team who will surprise a lot of people over this year. We get a chance on Wednesday to play an exhibition contest which will give us another chance to improve and find our game."
Up Next: The Panthers travel to Rolla, MO on Wednesday to take on Division II Missouri S&T at 7:00 pm.
