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SPRINGFIELD – Drury advanced to the quarterfinals of the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament with a 97-76 win in the opening round over Rockhurst on Sunday at the O’Reilly Family Event Center.
Drury, the eighth seed in the tournament, improved to 18-9. Rockhurst was seeded ninth and ends their season with a 14-13 record.
Panthers guard Tevin Foster had career high 32 points to lead a Drury team that shot a blistering 66 percent from the field. The Panthers hit 33 of their 50 shot attempts while Foster went 7 for 9 from the field, 7 for 7 from three-point range and 11 for 12 from the foul line. As a team, Drury made 11 of their 16 three-point attempts.
It was actually Rockhurst that opened the game hot, though. The Hawks jumped out to 17-9 lead five minutes into the game. Drury responded with 12-3 run and took a 21-20 midway through the first half. The Panthers went up by nine at halftime as they outscored Rockhurst 16-7 in the final seven minutes of the half to take a 43-34 lead at the intermission.
Drury outscored Rockhurst 54-42 in the second half and led by as much as 30 late in the game.
“I thought we played really good defense in the first half,” said Drury head coach Steve Hesser. “We moved the basketball well and got into some flow offensively after the first five minutes.”
Isaac Johnson added 17 points and six assists for Drury while John Williams put in 15 points and Joshua Palmer added 12.
Connor Evans led Rockhurst with 13 points.
The Panthers advance to the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament quarterfinals on Thursday at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. Their opponent and game time will be announced later Sunday night. Winners of Sunday’s opening round games are re-seeded on the tournament bracket with the lowest seed matched up with the top-seeded squad.
