ELSAH, IL – The Principia Women's Basketball team knew going into Saturday's home game with the undefeated Webster Gorloks that they would have their hands full and needed to play two complete halves to pull off an upset. At the beginning of last week, the Gorloks found themselves ranked in the top 25 nationally for the first time this season. Webster's attacking full court press and post dominated offense has made them a very tough team to play. The game was a tale of two halves for the Panthers as they were thoroughly dominated 40-15 in the first half, but were able to win the second half 35-33. Even though Webster came out on top overall, Principia can take positives out of their second half play as they move into the final two weeks of the regular season.
Both teams started slowly offensively as each were getting more stops than either had points. Unfortunately for the Panthers, the Gorloks found their offense much quicker and finished the first quarter up by 12. Webster continued their strong play into the second and won the quarter 21-8 to go into halftime up by 25. The huge hole put a damper on the Panthers' hope of overcoming such a powerhouse team, but Principia came out of the half vowing to change the feel of the game.
The third quarter started with a huge uptick in the defensive pressure from Principia. On offense, the Panthers were able to begin with two quick scores on back-to-back lay ups by
Trinniti Matthews, who led Principia with 15 points in the game. After the Panthers were able to win the third quarter 19-17, the fourth quarter proved to be a replica of the third as both defenses continued to trade blows mixed with moments of high efficiency offense. Principia held Webster to their lowest scoring quarter in the fourth as the Gorloks would only score 16 in the final frame. However, Webster had more than enough cushion from the first half, and they won the game 73-50 to continue their perfect season.
Despite the loss, Principia had accomplished their goal of changing the feel of the game in the second half and will look to play much more like that if they meet Webster again in the SLIAC Tournament. The loss drops the Panthers into a tie with Greenville for third in the conference standings at 9-5. Since Greenville owns the head-to-head tiebreaker vs Principia, the Panthers would be the fourth seed if the season ended today.
Coach Ro said afterwards: "After coming out and playing defense the way we wanted to for the first five minutes, we let some bad offensive possessions get our heads down leading to additional pressure on our defense. We went into halftime and spoke about how to right the ship as a team, and this tremendous group of women came right out and executed what we spoke about all week. It was a great growing moment for this group. I am proud of them, win or lose."
Up Next: The Panthers have one of the biggest games of the season on Tuesday at Westminster College. The Blue Jays are currently one game ahead of Principia in second place, so a Panthers win would give them the inside track on the #2 seed for a first round bye in the tournament. Tune in at 5:30 pm for the important matchup!
