ELSAH, IL – The Principia men's basketball team hosted the Harris-Stowe State University Hornets on Tuesday evening for their home opener. This past weekend, the Panthers struggled to find their footing in their first contest at Illinois College, but played much better in game two vs Benedictine despite another loss. With a packed home crowd vs Harris-Stowe, Principia continued their upwards trajectory of improved play to earn an exciting first win, 96-84.
Junior transfer
Mikhali Roberts opened the game with a three-pointer to get the home fans going, and the Panther threes would not stop falling all night. After the Hornets took an early 10-7 lead just over three minutes into the game, Principia went on an 11-0 run which included big threes from freshmen
Xavier McDowell and
Caden Smith. Another deep ball by fellow freshman
Derek Schauman upped Principia's lead to 13 with five minutes left in the half, as this trio of first-year Panthers would combine to make 11 threes on the night. Senior
Abe Pogue then cashed in two treys of his own to give Principia a 22-point lead just before halftime, and the Panthers would head to the break up 47-29.
Harris-Stowe clawed back into the game over the first seven minutes of the second half as they cut the lead to just six with 13:22 to play. McDowell's fourth triple of the night stopped the bleeding and got the Panthers rolling again as junior
Nolan Simon scored the next eight points for Principia to go back up by 13. Schauman also made his fourth from beyond the arc with seven minutes remaining to raise the Panther lead to 19 as Principia would cruise to a 96-84 victory.
Nolan Simon and
Mikhali Roberts made shots from all over the floor in this one as both players led the way on offense. Simon scored 21 points while adding 8 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals. Roberts followed up a big double-double vs Benedictine with another strong performance as he finished with 19 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. The freshmen trio of
Derek Schauman (15 points),
Xavier McDowell (14 points), and
Caden Smith (14 points) shot lights out, while Smith finished one rebound shy of his first collegiate double-double.
Abe Pogue also had a nice game with 11 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals.
Principia combined to make 15 threes in the game, the most the program has had since the 2016-17 team hit 16 in one game nine years ago. The program record is 18 from back in 2011. The Panthers will head back on the road this coming Saturday when they travel to Memphis, TN to face Rhodes College at 12:00 PM.
