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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — In a back-and-forth battle between nationally-ranked teams, the second-ranked Drury Lady Panthers kicked off their home season with a hard-fought 65-58 win over the 18th ranked Bulldogs of Minnesota Duluth at the O’Reilly Family Event Center on Thursday night.
Trailing 33-28 at halftime, the Lady Panthers found themselves down by eight points 43-35 midway through the third quarter, but cranked up their defensive effort, outscoring the Bulldogs 30-15 over the final fifteen minutes of action and moved to 5-1 overall for the season, while the Bulldogs dropped to 0-1 in their ‘20-21 season opener.
“I’m proud of this team,” said Drury head coach Amy Eagan. “We’ve played a really tough schedule, and we’re going to continue to play a tough schedule through the non-conference, and you’ve gotta find a way to grind it out, and we did that tonight.”
Leading 55-54 with a little over two minutes remaining, Drury was able to seal the win, hitting on eight of ten free throws down the stretch, as Minnesota-Duluth was forced to extend the game with fouls.
Senior Paige Robinson hit three critical charity shots in the closing moments and finished with a team-high 16 points, with junior Alana Findley adding 14 and senior transfer Kaylee DaMitz tossing in 12, including five clutch free throws late in the contest.
“We as a team will get everyone’s best effort every night,” added Eagan. “And in particular, Paige will get a lot of the focus, but with her, the most important thing is getting the win.”
Brooke Olson paced the scoring for Minnesota-Duluth, hitting for 17, and was the only Bulldog in double-figure scoring. Drury won the battle on the boards, outrebounding their taller opponents 37-34 on the night.
During halftime, Drury University retired the jerseys of two former program greats. Hailey Diestelkamp, a two-time NCAA Division II National-Player-of-the-Year, and Daejah Bernard, a three-time Great Lakes Valley Conference Defensive-Player-of-the-Year, became the second and third players in program history to be honored with the retirement of their jersey numbers.
The Lady Panthers return to action, Saturday, Nov. 20th, when they hit the road for a 1:30 pm match-up against Emporia State in Emporia, Kansas.
