ELSAH, IL – The Principia Women's Basketball team hosted the Eureka Red Devils on Saturday in the final game of the regular season as the looked to send their three seniors out with a win. When these teams met earlier this year, Eureka put up a huge fight in the first half before the Panthers enforced their will in the second half to get a 20 point win. That scare by the Red Devils in the last game was a reminder to the Panthers to not take any opponent lightly.
Before the game, senior forwards
Alana Hinson,
Paige Fowler, and
Deija Carter were honored for their Panther careers that were pivotal to the resurgence of the program. The starting lineup looked a little different as all three seniors started as a group, joined by
Carolina Rojas and
Ariana Williams. The senior trio took over the first 5 minutes of the game with a variety of layups, jump shots and threes by Hinson and Carter that put Principia up 12-5 before anyone else on the Panthers even had a chance to score. The remainder of the first was controlled by the sophomore trio of
Ariana Williams,
Taylor Brown and
Trinniti Matthews, who also found a variety of ways to score. The Panthers finished the quarter leading 24-9, and they never looked back after that.
The second was more of the same as the Principia defense led the way and got numerous stops to allow their offense to stay calm and find great shots. The last senior to hit the stat sheet for the night was
Paige Fowler who hit a jumper with 8:21 remaining in the half. Big three pointers by Hinson and
Genesis Santiago added to the Panther lead, which allowed Principia to get in their entire bench very early in the game. The Panthers went into the break leading 40-18. Principia kept up the defensive dominance in the second half as the entire squad continued to get in on the action. The Panthers found themselves up as much as 34 points late in the fourth quarter, and the game ended with Principia winning 73-45.
While this will not be the seniors last home game with Principia hosting the quarterfinals, the trio still had nice contributions in their final regular season game of their careers.
Alana Hinson finished with 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 steal,
Deija Carter added 6 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal, followed by
Paige Fowler with 4 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks, and 1 steal. Overall, the Panthers were led by
Taylor Brown with 19 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal, and
Ariana Williams with 16 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 blocks, and 4 steals. The entire team played great defense as evidenced by 10 different Panthers recording a steal for 14 total in the game.
Coach Ro said afterwards: "What a way to end the regular season for these three wonderful senior women. We played a very well-balanced game where we had some of our best offensive possessions of the year. These three seniors have meant so much to our program in helping build it from its grassroots, and I was so happy to see them all scoring in bunches today. We are so appreciative of all the hard work and leadership they've given to the program, and we will miss them tremendously."
Up Next: The Spalding Golden Eagles come to Elsah on Wednesday for the Principia women's first home SLIAC Tournament game since the mid '90s. Tip off is at 7:00 pm – come pack Hay Field House for this huge playoff matchup!
