FULTON, MO – The Principia Women's Basketball team traveled over to Fulton, Missouri on Tuesday looking for their first win in Westminster College's historic gym since 2006. This was a very important matchup for both teams as the winner would have an inside track on the #2 seed and a first round bye in the SLIAC Tournament. The game was a heated battle until the final whistle, but Westminster came out on top 61-58 to solidify their second place position in the conference.
In the Panthers' previous game on Saturday vs Webster, they played much better in the second half after a rough first half. This game ended up being the reverse as Principia played excellent defense in the first two quarters to head into halftime with 28-21 lead. Unfortunately, the second half did not go as well defensively as Westminster would drop 40 points led by the conference's leading scorer, Annette Ramirez.
The Blue Jays came out with a ton of energy after halftime to retake the lead by the end of the third quarter. Things started to look bleak with 8 minutes remaining in the game when Westminster took a 10 point lead, but the tough-minded Panthers would not give up. Down by 9 with 6 minutes to go, sophomores
Trinniti Matthews and
Ariana Williams led Principia on a 10-0 run over the next 3 minutes to retake the lead. After the Blue Jays scored the next 7 points to go back up by 5, Williams got huge steal with a minute left and took it the length of the floor to make it a one possession game. Principia got a big stop, and then Williams made a tough, driving lay up with 16 seconds remaining to cut the lead to 59-58. After the Blue Jays made both of their free throws, the Panthers had a shot to send the game to OT, but their three pointer at the buzzer missed the mark.
The loss drops Principia to fourth place in the conference standings at 9-6. If they can take care of business in their final three games against teams below them in the standings, the Panthers would host a SLIAC quarterfinal game on Wednesday, February 21 for the program's first home playoff game since the 1990s.
Coach Ro said afterwards: "I need to find a way to stretch out our lineup better as we are dealing with some end of the season fatigue, and we have not been as deep as we thought we would be because of some injury difficulties that have come up during the season. I'm confident in our group that we will turn things around to end this season on a high note."
Up Next: The Panthers will host the last place Blackburn Beavers on Saturday at 1:00 pm in Hay Field House.
