The win was Drury’s 15th straight and raised their record to 19-1 and 12-0 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. Southwest Baptist dropped to 10-10 and 4-8 in the league.
Freshman guard Rhi Gibbons scored a career-high 20 points, as the Nixa product went 9 for 11 from the field. Kaylee DaMitz-Holt added 19 points and hit four three-pointers, while Terrion Moore and Alana Findley both chipped in 11 points.
“Obviously, when you’re down at halftime, there’s some concern,” said Drury head coach Amy Eagan. “They were taking advantage of us inside. We knew we needed to clean some of that up in the third and fourth quarter, so we made a couple of adjustments, and I thought we executed that really well.”
The Lady Panthers held SBU to just one made field goal in the third quarter and five made shots from the floor in the fourth. They shut out the Bearcats from three-point range in the game as the Southwest Baptist was 0 for 9 from behind the arc.
The game marked only the third time Drury has trailed at the half this year. The Lady Panthers were behind at the intermission earlier this season against Ashland, their only loss of the year, and two weeks ago at Lewis, a seven-point Drury win on the road.
The Lady Panthers owned a 33-25 advantage on the glass and did not allow an offensive rebound in the second half.
Kelsey Blakemore had a game-high 21 points for Southwest Baptist, while Tori Hamilton had 18 points and nine rebounds.
Drury plays again on Saturday when they travel to Rockhurst for a 1 pm game in Kansas City, Missouri.
