SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— The Drury Panthers built a sizeable first-half lead on visiting William Jewell, then held off a furious second-half challenge from the Cardinals to claim a 72-60 win on Thursday night at the O’Reilly Family Event Center, snapping a brief two-game losing skid.
The Panthers used a 29-10 scoring run over the final two-thirds of the first half to carry a 40-21 advantage into halftime, but William Jewell didn’t go away, trimming the margin to just two points with just over four minutes to play, before Drury was able to regain control.
Leading 63-60 with under a minute and a half to play, graduate student Preston Cook scored on a putback and free throw to complete a three-point play to give the Panthers a four-point lead. Moments later, he followed with a strong defensive rebound and two more free throws to put the game out of reach.
“I was proud of Preston, getting 12 points and seven boards.” said Drury head coach Chris Foster. “We brought him off the bench tonight, he accepted that challenge, came in and he was really big for us.”
Junior Riley Naeger paced the Panther scoring, finishing with 14 points, while Cook had 12, and freshman Logan Applegate closed with 11 as the Panthers improved to 7-11 overall on the season, and now 3-7 n Great Lakes Valley Conference play.
“Credit to Jewell,” added Foster. “They’re a good team, and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. They missed some open looks early for us, but I was proud of our guys for sticking with it when things got close near the end.”
The Cardinals (9-9, 6-4) got a 16-point effort from Grant Stubbs, 13 coming in the first half.
The Panthers outrebounded the Cardinals 40-37 and hit on nine of twelve three throws, while William Jewell made just one of two from the charity stripe in a game that featured just 21 total fouls.
The Panthers remain at home for their next outing, a 3 pm contest with Truman State on Saturday at the O’Reilly Family Event Center.
