Nationally 10th-ranked Pittsburg State fought off a late rally by No. 7 Drury and held off the Lady Panthers for a 78-73 victory in the matchup of national powers in the Doubletree Hotel/Houlihan's Thanksgiving Classic Friday night before 1,804 fans at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.

Sanayika Shields led four Lady Panthers in double-figures with 18 points and added a game-high 13 rebounds for her fourth double-double in five games as Drury fell to 3-2 on the season. Pittsburg State improved to 7-0.

The Lady Panthers trailed 40-33 at the half after being down by as many as 12 points, and had pushed the lead back out to 11 (52-41) with 13:06 to go in the game.

But Drury put together one of several rallies to make a game of it, trailing 52-48 two minutes later after Shelby White's layup. The Lady Panthers had a crucial four-point swing late when, trailing 66-60 with 3:30 to play, White's attempt from close range came up short and Lizzy Jeronimus answered with a layup at the other end to push it back to eight.

The Lady Panthers cut it to three again (74-71) with 19 seconds left on a White 3-pointer, but the Gorillas ran out the clock for the victory.

"Hopefully these games help you in March, but they sting right now," Drury coach Molly Miller said. "Instead of blowing teams out by 30 and 40, you hope these close ones will make a difference in the end when it comes NCAA tournament time."

Annie Armstrong added 15 points, Alice Heinzler added 14 points and Paige Wilson had 13 points for the Lady Panthers, who lost a non-conference contest at The O' for the first time in their last 16 games, dating back to a November 20, 2010 loss to Southwest Baptist in the inaugural season of the arena.

Armstrong went 5-for-6 at the line, with a late-game miss snapping her streak of 32 consecutive made free throws to start the season. She is now 34 for 35 at the line on the season.

Jeronimus, a returning First Team All-America selection, finished with 27 points and eight rebounds to lead the Gorillas. Kylie Gafford added 14 points, Mikaela Burgess had 12 points off the bench and Cathy Brugman scored 11 points for PSU, which had defeated fellow GLVC members William Jewell (89-51) and Truman State (102-45) in the past week.

The Gorillas turned it over just nine times and shot 48 percent from the field (30 of 62), while DU had 11 turnovers and finished at 43 percent (25 of 58).

Drury will play Northeastern State - which met Rockhurst in Friday's late contest of the Thanksgiving Classic - at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at The O'.