WESTFIELD, Ind. - Tyler Arthur's eighth-inning grand slam gave Drury some much-needed breathing room, and the No. 7 seed Panthers went on to defeat No. 5 seed Southern Indiana 11-7 late Saturday night at Grand Park to reach the Great Lakes Valley Conference championship game for the third straight year.

Coach Scott Nasby's Panthers, who've won 13 of their last 15 games to get to 30-22-1 on the season, will take on top seed Quincy (39-14) at noon EST on Sunday at Grand Park for the title. It's a rematch of last year's championship tilt at Bosse Field in Evansville, where the Panthers came away 2-1 winners. Quincy moved into this year's title contest with a 5-0 victory over William Jewell on Saturday.

Drury started quickly Saturday against the Screaming Eagles, the defending NCAA-II national champions who ended the Panthers' season last year with a 4-2 victory in the NCAA-II Midwest Regional title game. 
 

This time, Drury struck for four runs in the first inning - the key blow, a two-run triple by Bobby Lang -  chased USI starter Alex Holder, and then about an hour later, had to wait through a five-and-a-half hour rain delay as stormy weather moved through the Indianapolis area and sent both teams back to their hotels for the late-afternoon/early-evening period.

They returned to Grand Park and got started around 8:20 p.m. EST with resumption of play in the top of the second inning and the Panthers on top 4-0 in what became a makeshift twi-night singleheader, if you will.

And a great, back-and-forth one at that.

"There were so many huge spots in that game it's hard to pick out the best, but Arthur's home run has to go down as one of the biggest home runs we've ever had," Nasby said. "It rivals the 2007 (GLVC tourney) home run by Harrison Waters. 

"Our three freshmen pitchers today bridged the gap on a tough day to play. Our guys are resilient and determined. This group is unique, and has a lot of fight in 'em."

USI (28-21) used the long ball to chip away at the Drury lead, and had cut it to 4-3 through five innings.
 

But the Panthers added two in the sixth to push the lead back to 6-3, before the Screaming Eagles answered with a two-run homer in the seventh to make it a one-run game at 6-5 again.

However, Drury countered with a run in the bottom of the frame - Conner Wilson tripled, and later trotted home on a passed ball to make it 7-5.

The Screaming Eagles came back with a single run in the eighth to cut it back to 7-6 before Arthur decided enough was enough. The Panthers had the bases-loaded after a couple of walks and a hit-by-pitch, but USI appeared on the verge of working out of the jam until Arthur launched a ball deep into the darkness over the left-field wall to clear the bases with his ninth home run of the season.

That pushed the DU lead to 11-6, and USI scratched across a run in the ninth for the final margin in a game that concluded 8 hours and 42 minutes after it began.

Arthur had two of Drury's nine hits - including an RBI triple in the first inning - and drove in five runs to lead the offense, while Bobby Lang scored twice and drove in a pair.

 On the mound, DU started lefty Luke Burnidge, but after the lengthy rain delay, turned to freshmen Ryan Wedermyer (1-1), Nick Costantino and Austin Simms for the remainder of the contest before senior closer Gage Jacobs pitched the eighth and the ninth to earn his 12th save of the season.

Jaylen Quarles had three hits for USI, while Trent Gunn had two hits and three RBIs and Kyle Kempf had a pair of hits and scored twice for the Screaming Eagles, who homered three times in the game, including two from Gunn.

NOTES

*Drury and Quincy met four times in Quincy during the regular season, when the Hawks took three of four in the GLVC series. Quincy one the first three games by scores of 6-3, 3-1 and 6-0 before the Panthers avoided the sweep with a 7-4 win in the finale.

*Drury is 22-14 in the all-time series vs. Quincy.

*Drury's 2-1 win over the Hawks in last year's title game in Evansville featured a complete-game victory on the mound from now-graduated pitcher Kevin Sweeney, who allowed just four hits and no earned runs in his nine innings of work.

*The Panthers are in the GLVC title game for the third straight year, having lost in the 2013 finale to Bellarmine by a 2-1 score. Drury has won seven consecutive games in the GLVC Championship post-season tourney since that setback, and are 10-1 in the meet now under Nasby.

*With his 12th save of the season Saturday night, Gage Jacobs moved within one of Laurent Zenoni's team-record 13 saves in 2012.

*Drury has now won 30 or more games five times in the program's nine-year history, for three consecutive seasons and four of the last five. The Panthers won 29 games in 2012. 

*The NCAA-II Midwest Regional pairings will be announced at 9 p.m. (CST) on Sunday at www.ncaa.com. Drury, fifth in the region rankings released on Wednesday, figures to have played its way solidly into the NCAA tourney field for a third straight year with this weekend's showing in the GLVC tourney.