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The Drury Panthers captured their 10th victory of the season Saturday at the O’Reilly Family Events Center with a 71-61 win over the Screaming Eagles of Southern Indiana in Great Lakes Valley Conference action.
Paced by stellar performances from a trio of freshmen, the Panthers managed to pull away in the second half, racing to a late-game lead of as many as 13 points before holding on for the win.
Freshman Cam Potts dropped in 11 points in the second half, including a thundering dunk in the closing minutes while fellow rookies Conley Garrison and Julius Walker added 9 points each to support the game-high 15 points of sophomore Kamau Kinder. The Screaming Eagles were lead in scoring by junior Alex Stein, with 16 points.
The Panthers (10-2, 3-1) were strong inside, outscoring USI 30-24 in the paint, while losing the rebound battle by a narrow 37-35 margin, with Potts and Walker grabbing a team-high six each. Drury was 11 of 26 from 3-point range and finished the game shooting 46% from the field and holding USI to 40%.
“I’m very proud of our guys,” said Drury head coach Steve Hesser. “Southern Indiana is good, and they’re physical. We had a size disadvantage and had to have guys help defensively. We were able to get that and had several people step up for us.”
First half action was back and forth, with 15 lead changes and the largest margin at four points, twice by the Panthers, while they played error-free, committing no turnovers the first 20 minutes of action.
With the victory, the Panthers moved into a first-place tie with Truman State in the GLVC West Division race. USI (12-4, 3-1) dropped to second in the East Division with their first conference defeat of the season.
The Panthers are idle until a matchup on Saturday, January 13th, when they host Missouri S&T in a 3 p.m. showdown at the O’Reilly Family Events Center.
