SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— The Drury Panthers closed out both the non-conference portion of their 2023-24 season as well as their pre-holiday schedule on Tuesday afternoon at the O’Reilly Family Event Center with a 72-68 win over the Muleriders of Southern Arkansas.
But improving their season record to 7-4 with the win did not come easy for the Panthers, as the contest was tightly contested from start to finish.
The game saw a total of 14 lead changes and the Panthers found themselves trailing 50-49 with just over nine minutes to play. But an impressive offensive surge over the next five minutes saw Drury outscore the Muleriders 12-0 to grab a 61-50 advantage, then they held on in the closing minutes to turn back Southern Arkansas.
“They’re a gritty team and they make it hard on you at times,” said Drury head coach Chris Foster. “But, I thought in that stretch we played some good inside-outside basketball and it created some good shots for us.”
Freshman Juok Riak was the strong force for the Panthers, leading the way in scoring, as he finished with 24 points on 8 of 11 shooting from the field and a perfect 8 for 8 from the free throw line.
“I thought Juok did a good job of getting inside and demanding the ball, posting hard and our guys did a good job of looking for him,” added Foster.
Sophomore Logan Applegate dropped in 18 points for Drury and just missed a double-double effort for the day, finishing with a team-best nine rebounds. Senior Quenton Shelton added 11 for the Panthers.
Southern Arkansas, who dropped to 4-6 with the loss, got a 23-point effort from Carel Ray, Jr. to top their scoring.
The Panthers are now idle through the Holidays and will return to action on Wednesday, January 3rd when they travel to Illinois-Springfield for a 7:30 pm GLVC contest.
