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The Drury Lady Panthers returned for their first action from the holiday break, and during the opening quarter looked at times like a team that hadn’t played in 20 days. However, the layoff lull came to a quick end, as they emerged from halftime to take control of their Great Lakes Valley Conference meeting with visiting Southern Indiana and stormed to an impressive 71-55 win at the O’Reilly Family Events Center.
The 8th ranked Lady Panthers (12-1, 4-0) scored the first 14 points after intermission while holding the 20th ranked Screaming Eagles scoreless the opening 5:03 of the third quarter and put the contest away, grabbing a 50-33 lead midway through the period.
Drury sophomore Hailey Diestelkamp worked both ends of the floor effectively and finished the afternoon with a double-double effort, scoring 13, while pulling down 12 rebounds. Junior Lucia Fernandez captured team scoring honors for the Lady Panthers, pouring in 16 points on 6 of 7 shooting from the field.
“It’s kind of a New Year’s resolution of ours,” said Drury head coach Molly Miller, “when teams are down, we need to put them away, so we gotta flip the switch and extend leads at home when we have them.”
Facing a much taller lineup, Drury won both the rebounding battle 31-29 and outscored Southern Indiana 34-22 in the paint.
The Screaming Eagles (11-2, 3-1) held a one-point lead at 19-18 after the opening quarter of action, as seniors Kaydie Grooms and Morgan Dahlstrom accounted for all the USI scoring with 10 and 9 points respectively.
The Lady Panthers quickly took control in the second quarter, outscoring Southern Indiana 9-2 in the opening minutes to gain the first of two six point leads at 27-21.
Seniors Alice Heinzler and Heather Harman added 11 points and 10 points each to support the Drury scoring. Grooms finished with game scoring honors with 20 for USI.
Harman drained a 3-pointer early in the first quarter to become the 15th player in Drury Lady Panther history to reach 1,000 points for a career.
The Lady Panthers return to action on Wednesday, January 10th with an 11 a.m. contest at home against visiting Lane College of Tennessee in non-conference play.
