SPRINGFIELD, Mo.– The Drury Lady Panthers are in the NCAA-II Tournament for the 21st time in their 24-year team history as they received an at-large bid on Sunday night. Drury is the seventh seed in the Midwest Region and will play second-seeded and defending national champion Ashland on Friday, March 16, in Allendale, Michigan.
Drury is 25-6 and ended the regular season ranked 23rd nationally. Ashland is 30-1 and received an automatic bid by winning the Great Midwest Athletic Conference tournament. The Eagles are ranked number one in NCAA-II, but Grand Valley State, ranked second nationally and champions of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, was awarded the top seed in the region and will host all three rounds of the Midwest Region in Allendale, Mich.
The winner of the Drury-Ashland game will play the winner of third-seeded Ferris State (22-5) and number six seed Lewis (23-8) on Saturday, March 17.
The other opening round games include top-seeded Grand Valley State (29-2) vs. number eight seed Trevecca Nazarene (19-8), and fourth-seeded Northern Michigan (21-9) against number five seed Kentucky Wesleyan (21-6).
Game times and ticket information will be announced at a later date.
Both regional semifinals are scheduled for March 17 and the regional championship is set for Monday, March 19. The winner of the region will advance to the NCAA-II Elite Eight in St. Joseph, Missouri, March 25-29.
The Lady Panthers are in the NCAA-II Tournament for the 11th year in a row, in addition to making their 21st trip in 24 seasons. Drury has won five NCAA-II regional championships, advanced to three Final Four’s and been the national runner-up twice.
Drury head coach Kaci Bailey guided the Lady Panthers to their latest national tournament appearance in her first season leading the program and took over a team with no returning starters and just six players back from last year’s team.
The Lady Panthers match-up with Ashland will mark the fifth meeting between the two teams in the national tournament and the first game played in the postseason series on a neutral floor. The Lady Panthers are 2-2 against the Eagles in the NCAA-II Tournament, with three of the four earlier games played in Ashland, Ohio. The Eagles defeated Drury in the regular season last year with an overtime victory in Springfield, 68-67, on Nov. 22, 2022.
STORY ON GLVC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME:
ST. CHARLES, Mo.— Drury had their run of seven consecutive Great Lakes Valley Conference championships come to an end as the top-seeded Lewis Flyers defeated the Lady Panthers 79-67 in the league championship game at Hyland Arena in St. Charles, Missouri, on Sunday.
Lewis went 23-8 while Drury fell to 25-6. The GLVC Championship game marked the third year in a row the two teams played for the title.
The Flyers built a ten-point lead at the end of the opening quarter, going up 22-12, and held off the Lady Panthers by hitting 10 of 19 three-point attempts.
Drury pulled within seven at the half, 40-33, then started the second half with a lay-up by Beth Matas Martin, then a three-pointer from Caitlynn Daniels that cut the Lewis lead to two. The Lady Panthers were called for a flagrant foul on the next possession, though, and the Flyers made a free throw and scored on a Taylor Gugliuzza basket to push the margin back to five.
Lewis led by as much as 14 in the second half, but Drury got as close as three in the fourth quarter but fell short of taking the lead or pulling even.
“They got Reese Schaaf frustrated early,” said Drury head coach Kaci Bailey. “They doubled, they crowded the paint, and she couldn’t go anywhere. They put some size on her (the 6’2” Gabrielle Hoover in her first start of the year) and clogged the middle. Our guards didn’t do a great job, at first of recognizing the open spaces because we’re so used to Reese going one-on-one.”
Flyers guard Jenna Badali scored a game-high 31 points and was named the GLVC Tournament’s Most Valuable Player. Badali made 10 of 17 shots and was 6 for 8 from three-point range. Grace Hilber added 17 points for Lewis.
“Lewis played a great game,” added Bailey. “They were, by far, the better team this afternoon. They played great defense in that they took away Reese, but they also took away driving lanes and the three-point line from our guards.”
Daniels led Drury’s late charge and got the Lady Panthers back in the game with 22 points in the second half and finished with 26. The Robins, Iowa native was 8 for 11 from the floor, 4 for 7 from behind the arc, and made all six of her free throws.
The Flyers shot 46 percent from the field and went 21 for 28 at the free throw line. Drury shot 45 percent, going 24 for 53 and connected on 7 of 17 three-pointers. Lewis owned a 34-29 rebounding advantage and had 10 offensive boards to Drury’s seven.
Schaaf was held to six points but added 10 rebounds and became the second player in program history to reach 500 points and 300 rebounds in the same season. Hailey Diestelkamp accomplished the feat in 2018-19.
Daniels and Martin were named to the GLVC All-Tournament team after the game.
Sunday’s game marked the eighth year in a row the Lady Panthers reached the league championship game, and they entered the contest having won 23 straight GLVC postseason games.
Drury has earned an at-large bid and has qualified as a seven-seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA DII women’s basketball tournament. They’ll face two-seed Ashland Thursday.
