ELSAH, IL – The Principia women's basketball team hosted four other schools this weekend for their first annual Laura Williams Memorial Classic. The Panthers were joined by Illinois College, Spalding University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, who all played two games in Hay Field House to kick off the 2025-26 regular season.
The event's namesake, Laura Williams (Saucedo), played for Principia WBB from 1990-94 and is the program's all-time leader in career points per game with 21.2. She also held the career scoring record of 1678 points for 15 years. She is a member of Principia's Gold & Blue Hall of Fame and the SLIAC Hall of Fame.
On Friday evening, Principia took the floor against a strong first opponent in the Illinois College Lady Blues. After both the first and second quarter both finished with an 18-17 advantage to IC, the Panthers went into halftime down by two at 36-34. As was the case for most of last season, Principia's strongest quarter was the third as they came out of the break in rhythm and outscored the Lady Blues 31-23 to go up by six.
That trend continued for most of the fourth quarter with the Panthers extending their lead to 92-80 with a minute and a half to play. However, some Principia turnovers and missed free throws helped IC go on a quick 10-0 run in less than a minute to cut the lead to two.
Lamiya Terrell then hit two clutch free throws followed by a big steal on defense by
Hannah Myers to secure the victory.
Six Panthers finished in double figures led by junior
Genesis Santiago off the bench with 21 points. Myers finished with a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds as well as a career-high 7 steals. Terrell had 17 points and 4 steals. Fellow starters
Ariana Williams (11 points, 8 rebounds, 4 steals),
Trinniti Matthews (12 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks), and
Taylor Brown (10 points, 6 rebounds) all had strong opening games.
On Saturday, Principia took on Illinois Tech and led from start to finish. After a closer first half, the Panthers ran away with the game in the second half as they won in dominant fashion, 78-47.
Genesis Santiago led the team in scoring again with 23 points, while adding 5 rebounds and 6 steals.
Lamiya Terrell had another big game on both ends of the floor with 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 steals, while
Trinniti Matthews (11 points and 6 rebounds) and
Hannah Myers (10 points and 7 rebounds) also finished in double figures.
Both Santiago and Terrell were chosen for the All-Tournament team along with Spalding's Gabby Douglass and Zaneiya Batiste, Illinois College's Raegen Stringer and Jayln Patterson, UWSP's Emma Kilpatrick and Maija Rice, and Illinois Tech's Chloe Churilla and Abigail Marino.
The Panthers were the only active SLIAC team to come out of the weekend with an unblemished record, and Santiago was named the conference's player of the week. The team will now have two weeks off before a challenging stretch of four road games in five days beginning on November 21st at Earlham College in Indiana.
