Princeville Princes Boys Basketball: 2026-27 Schedule and History
Princeville Princes · Princeville, Illinois · Lincoln Trail Conference
2025-26: 15-16 · All-time: 1,411-844 (.626) · 88 recorded seasons
Princeville have the best all-time winning percentage of any boys basketball programme in this coverage area — better than Galesburg, better than Wethersfield, better than Annawan. Fourteen hundred wins across 88 seasons since 1913-14, and a file that is complete and current.
1984-85: the Elite Eight
One season stands apart. Princeville went 28-3 under Jim Yauornik, won the regional, won the sectional, then beat Dakota 57-56 in the super-sectional to reach the Class A state finals.
The run ended in the quarter-final against Providence-St. Mel. The IHSA’s Place column is blank, so there was no trophy — an Elite Eight appearance and nothing to put in the case.
It is the only sectional title in Princeville history.
The full record
Regional titles (12): 1960-61, 1961-62, 1962-63, 1971-72, 1974-75, 1983-84, 1984-85, 1985-86, 1986-87, 1995-96, 2008-09, 2024-25.
Sectional titles (1): 1984-85.
State finals appearances (1): 1984-85.
Three straight in the early 1960s, four in five years around the 1985 run, then a long gap broken in 1995-96, 2008-09 and most recently 2024-25.
Where the programme is now
Two very strong years, then a correction. 28-6 in 2023-24, then 27-9 in 2024-25 with a Class 1A regional title, then 15-16 last season under Tait Sennett.
Fifty-five wins across two seasons followed by a .500 year is the ordinary rhythm of a small school losing a strong year group. The regional in 2024-25 was Princeville’s first in sixteen years.
Unlike most of this conference, Princeville’s IHSA filing is complete and current through 2025-26 with no blank rows — one of only five area boys programmes we can say that about.
We cannot confirm who is coaching
MaxPreps lists two people as head coach for 2026-27 — Tait Sennett and Aaron Cowser, both with the same tag. Sennett is the IHSA’s coach of record for 2025-26, so he is the likelier varsity head, but we have not confirmed it and will not assert it.
Princeville is one of three area programmes with this doubled listing this winter, alongside Stark County and Wethersfield.
How it compares to Princeville’s other sports
Boys basketball is comfortably the school’s strongest programme. The football Princes play in the LincolnLand Conference North, and volleyball carries 503-362 with eight regional titles and — like basketball before 1985 — no sectional championship at all.
Put the three together and a pattern emerges: Princeville win their own bracket regularly and rarely get past it. Twenty regional titles across basketball and volleyball, one sectional between them.
2026-27 schedule
Around six or seven games are posted for 2026-27. IHSA boys practice is scheduled to open Monday, November 9.
We will publish the full schedule on this page as soon as it is posted, and update results through the season.
Finding Princeville online
Princeville, Illinois competes for search results with Princeville, Hawaii, a resort town on Kauai that dominates the name online. There is also Princeville, North Carolina. The Illinois village has about 1,700 people and sits in Peoria County, roughly thirty miles east of Galesburg. Adding “Princes” or “Illinois” is what reaches the school.
Coverage of Lincoln Trail basketball is thin in general. MaxPreps carries schedules and scores when schools update them, which is inconsistent at this level. The IHSA’s record pages are authoritative but frequently years behind. No local outlet runs a nightly area scoreboard in winter.
We will post results on this page through the season. If you have a score before we do, send it and it goes up with credit.
What we are still chasing
- Which of the two listed head coaches leads the varsity
- The full 2026-27 schedule and roster
- Whether anyone connected to the 1984-85 state finals team is still in the area
The school
Princeville Community Unit School District 326 serves a village of roughly 1,700 people in northern Peoria County, about thirty miles east of Galesburg and twenty north-west of Peoria. It is one of the eastern-most members of the Lincoln Trail Conference and competes in Class 1A.
Princeville is also one of the few area schools with a student-run news operation posting sports coverage, which is occasionally a better source for rosters than anything official.
Where Princeville Princes rank in the area
Across the fourteen boys basketball programmes we cover, Princeville Princes sit fourth by all-time wins (1,411), third by winning percentage (.626) and third by regional championships (twelve).
The nearest programmes by wins are Knoxville Blue Bullets above (1,426) and Galva Wildcats below (1,281).
Princeville Princes have converted one of those twelve regional titles into a sectional championship, losing at that stage eleven times.
No state finals trophy. Seven area programmes have one; this is not among them.
Full comparisons for every programme, plus conference structure, season dates and how the Illinois postseason works, are on our area boys basketball guide.
By the numbers
| Games on record | 2,255 |
| Recorded seasons | 88 |
| Average wins per season | 16.0 |
| Average games per season | 26 |
| Regional titles | 12 |
| Share of all area regionals | 8.8% |
| Years since last regional | 1 |
The most recent regional title is the freshest in the area — a live piece of form rather than history.
The 2024-25 regional in context
Princeville broke a sixteen-year regional drought in 2024-25, their first since 2008-09. It came in a 27-9 season sandwiched between a 28-6 year and a 15-16 one — evidence that at this size of school a title depends less on sustained strength than on one group arriving at the right moment.
Send us results
Rosters, schedules, scores, corrections, photographs — send them and they go up with credit. We correct errors the same day we learn about them.
All-time record, championship years and state finishes from the IHSA’s per-school record page at ihsa.org, with the school total arithmetically verified against its individual season rows — the 15 coach subtotals sum exactly to 1,411-844 across 88 years. Coaching and schedule detail from MaxPreps team pages, retrieved September 2026. Corrections posted the same day.
