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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The Drury Panthers returned home to the O’Reilly Family Event Center on Monday night and used an eight-minute second-half scoring surge to defeat the Maryville Saints 77-58 and snapped a two-game losing skid while improving to 9-14 overall and to 6-9 in Great Lakes Valley Conference action.
 The teams played dead even the opening twenty minutes. Both owned a four-point edge one time each in the half, with 10 ties and eight lead changes that resulted in a 31-31 “push” at intermission.
 But the Panthers opened the second half, hitting on 10 of their first 13 attempts from the field, and moved ahead by 16 with just over 12 minutes to play, then leading by as many as twenty before the final margin.
 “We missed some opportunities in the first half; we missed some layups and gave up a lot in transition,” said Drury head coach Chris Foster. “But we were confident that if we could finish out those plays, it would help.”
 Drury got an impressive shooting effort from sophomore Quenton Shelton, who hit on 5 of 11 from three-point range and finished with a team-high 23 points.Â
 That effort slightly overshadowed an equally outstanding shooting night from junior Dillon Carlson, who went 6 of 10 from behind the arc and closed with a season-best 18. Senior Obi Okafor had 15 and junior Malek Davis reached double figures, adding 12.
 “We need that type of shooting, but it doesn’t happen without Obi coming out aggressive and finishing plays and then forcing their defense to collapse inside, which opened things up for us,” added Foster.
 Ari Jackson had 14 points to pace the Saints, who dropped to 10-16 and 4-14 in GLVC play.
The Panthers continue a busy three-game week and their final homestand of the season on Thursday, February 24th, when they host Quincy in a 7:45 pm contest at the O’Reilly Family Event Center.
