No. 12 Drury closed the game on a 10-3 run to pull away for a 73-59 victory over Missouri-St. Louis to clinch the Great Lakes Valley Conference West Division title on Saturday afternoon at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
Annie Armstrong, Hannah Dressler and Heather Harman scored 14 points each, Adrienne Horn added 12 points and Paige Wilson had 11 points as Drury won its 12th consecutive game and extended its school-record winning streak at home to 24 games. More importantly, the Lady Panthers (22-3, 15-2 in the GLVC) clinched at least the No. 2 seed for the GLVC Championship post-season tourney March 3-6 in St. Charles, Mo.
A third straight West title is Drury's ninth that it has either won or shared in its 11-year history in the GLVC. Drury has won the West now six times in the last seven years.
"You make that goal in October that you want to win your division, so it's a nice accomplishment for the girls," Drury coach Molly Miller said. "But we've got a lot more basketball ahead of us. We're going to focus on one more regular season game and then a really, really tough conference tournament coming up in St. Charles."
Drury led the Tritons (10-15, 5-12) 17-15 after one period, and outscored UMSL 20-9 in the second quarter to stretch that lead to 37-24 at the half.
But UMSL rallied to trail by six (52-46) with 8:24 to play. But Armstrong nailed a 3-pointer on the next trip and Drury was never really threatened again.
"I was proud of the way our girls, at the end there, made the extra pass to find the open player," Miller said. "I've got to give a lot of credit to UMSL … we only had six 3-pointers tonight. We were able to work it inside for a nice 1-2 punch with Hannah and Adrienne."
Wilson went 3-for-4 from 3-point range and has now made 15 of her last 17 trey attempts covering the last eight games. She's made 20 of her last 27 shots overall over her last five games after going 3 for 5 on Saturday.
Drury claimed a final 33-27 rebounding advantage, led by nine boards by Dressler.
Harman hit all five of her shots, Dressler went 6-for-8 and Horn was 5-for-7 as the Lady Panthers finished at 49 percent from the field (25 of 51) after shooting a blistering 64 percent (14 of 22) in the first half. UMSL made just 5 of 23 shots (22 percent) over the first two periods and kept it close by hitting 14 of 24 (58 percent) in the second half to finish at 40 percent for the game (19 of 47).
In one of her most complete games of the season, Harman added a team-high six assists to her 14 points and two steals in 24 minutes.
The Lady Panthers will close out the regular season next Thursday (Feb. 25) when they entertain Missouri S&T in a 5:30 p.m. tipoff for Senior Night festivities. Seniors Armstrong, Addy Roller and Brook Duncan
