The top-seeded Drury Lady Panthers outscored McKendree 31-10 in the third quarter to pull away for an 86-54 win on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament at the Vadalabene Center in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Drury improved to 27-2 and won their 12th straight to advance to the semifinals.
The Bearcats, seeded eighth, ended their season with a 12-14 record.
The Lady Panthers, ranked third in this week’s NCAA-II coaches’ poll, led McKegndree 41-30 at halftime. Drury opened up the lead in the third quarter as they held the Bearcats without a field goal for nearly nine minutes to start the second half.
“We didn’t do a very good job securing rebounds in the first half and gave up too many second-chance points,” said Drury head coach Molly Miller. “We were able to score 53 points off of turnovers, though, and that was huge for us.”
The Lady Panthers forced a season-high 40 turnovers against McKendree, held them to 36 percent shooting from the field, and matched a season-high with 25 steals.
Hailey Diestelkamp led Drury with a game-high 20 points. The sophomore from Owensville, Missouri was perfect from the floor going 7 for 7 and 3 for 3 from three-point range. Diestelkamp added six rebounds and four steals.
Lucia Fernandez contributed 14 points, four rebounds, and three steals.
Jordan Heberg led McKendree with 13 points.
Drury will advance to the GLVC semifinals and play the winner of fourth-seeded Missouri-St. Louis and number five Bellarmine on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at the Vadalabene Center in Edwardsville, Illinois.
