ST. LOUIS, Mo.— The number-one ranked Drury Lady Panthers remained unbeaten with a 79-37 road win on Thursday at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
The Lady Panthers improved to 25-0 and 15-0 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference while UMSL fell for the fifth straight game dropping their record to 11-14 and 5-11 in the league.
Drury led the Tritons 20-16 with 8:11 remaining the first half, then shut out UMSL for the rest of the half to lead 37-16 at the intermission.
“We knew this would be a different game from the first meeting, but we came out a little sloppy,” said Drury head coach Molly Miller, whose team beat the Tritons 77-44 just 12 days ago in Springfield. “We turned it over early, and it wasn’t anything they were doing – it was us. But we were able to change our focus, we rebounded well, and I thought our ball pressure was good.”
Hailey Diestelkamp scored a game-high 24 points on 10 of 18 shooting from the field and the junior from Owensville added seven rebounds and three steals. She also moved up to third-place on Drury’s single-season scoring list ending the night with 525 points for the year. Diestelkamp trails only Amanda Newton’s 544 points in 2003-04 and Lindsay Ballweg’s 644 point total in the 2009-10 season on the Lady Panthers single-season scoring chart.
Drury shot 53 percent from the field in the game hitting 33 of their 62 shots. The Lady Panthers set a new season-low with their 37 points allowed as the Tritons went just 30 percent from the field going 15 for 50. Drury outrebounded UMSL 38-29 and had 16 steals while forcing 28 turnovers.
Paige Robinson added 14 points for Drury while Daejah Bernard chipped in eight points, five assists, and six steals.
Alex LaPorta led UMSL with 12 points and seven rebounds.
The Lady Panthers continue their St. Louis road trip on Saturday when they take on Maryville for a 1 p.m. game.
