Heather Harman had game highs of 14 points and seven assists to lead No. 18 Drury to a 72-59 victory over Truman State in a battle of Great Lakes Valley Conference West Division leaders Saturday afternoon at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
Briana Jones added 12 points – including a 2-for-2 showing from 3-point range – and Alice Heinzler and Adrienne Hornadded 11 points each as the Lady Panthers won their sixth straight to improve to 16-3 overall and 9-2 in the GLVC.
Truman State fell to 14-7 and 8-3.
Most impressively, however, was Drury's dominance of the Bulldogs on the boards – by a 43-26 count, led by a career-high 11 rebounds from senior guard Annie Arrmstrong. Horn and Heinzler added six rebounds each and Hannah Dressler and Harman chipped in with five boards apiece as DU outrebounded an opponent for just the fifth time in 19 games, and this time in a major way against a team that was outrebounding its foes on average by five.
"I told them in the locker room they're playing some really good basketball," Drury coach Molly Miller said. "Adrienne (Horn) is coming on of late and doing a good job of being a force inside … and when you're hitting shots, the game's always a lot easier. We're hitting shots now like we know we can."
Drury went 12-for-24 from 3-point range and finished at 48 percent on all shots (27 of 56), while holding Truman to 38 percent (21 of 55), including a 6-for-17 showing on 3-pointers.
Drury led 21`-13 after one quarter and 36-30 at the half. A 20-11 scoring advantage in the third period helped Drury push it to double-digits as the Lady Panthers improved to 10-0 all-time against the Bulldogs.
Michalina Tomczak had 12 points and Kasey Gassensmith added 10 points to lead Truman, which entered the game in a three-way tie with Drury and Quincy atop the West standings.
"I'm extremely proud of the way we're playing right now," Miller said. "We're playing hard on defense, and offensively, things are starting to click for us.
"I'm just really pleased with our contributions 1 through 9. Anyone right now can step up and have a big game for us."
The Lady Panthers are back home next weekend as well to take on GLVC East squads, facing Southern Indiana at 5:45 p.m. Thursday in a rematch of last year's GLVC Championship game, and taking on Bellarmine at 1 p.m. Saturday in the fifth annual "Overflow The O'" games.
