INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.— The 12th ranked Drury Lady Panthers used an explosive second quarter of both offense and defense and turned back the William Jewell Cardinals 72-55 at the O’Reilly Family Event Center on Thursday night, improving to 8-1 for the season and to 3-1 in Great Lakes Valley Conference action.
After dueling the Cardinals in the opening ten minutes to lead 13-11 after the first quarter, the Lady Panthers found their shooting touch to score 25 points and used a shutdown defense to limit the visitors to just four points in the period to carry a 38-15 margin into halftime.
“I think we came out a little flat and we definitely didn’t start the game well,” said Drury head coach Kaci Bailey. “But we said at the first timeout, if you don’t make a change, you’re gonna lose this game, and I thought they responded well in that second quarter.”
Junior Caitlynn Daniels was the engine that powered the effort for Drury. Daniels played the first 34 minutes of the game and posted her first double-double effort of the season, finishing with 13 points and 11 rebounds, while also leading the Lady Panthers in assists with seven.
“I thought Caitlynn did really great tonight,” added Bailey. “She ended up with only 13 points, but there’s a lot of other things she did that don’t show up on the stat sheets, and she was really huge for us.”
Junior Makaiya Brooks came off the bench to drop in 12 for Drury, with sophomore Reese Schaaf adding 10.
William Jewell fell to 2-7 with the loss and 1-3 in conference play. They were led in scoring by Ayden Shannon and Abigail Jones, who had a team-best nine points each.
Paced by Daniels, Drury finished with a season-high in rebounds with 52 to 39 for the Cardinals.
The Lady Panthers continue Great Lakes Valley Conference action this Saturday when they host Southwest Baptist in a 1 pm game at the O’Reilly Family Event Center during Hall of Fame Weekend.
