SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – McKendree won three tight sets to sweep Drury 3-0 on Friday at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
The Bearcats won 25-23 in the first set and 25-22 in the second. The Panthers had a 21-19 lead in the third, but McKendree stormed back to take the set 25-23 to clinch the win.
"That was a good back-and-forth match," said Drury head coach
Jenifer Bahner. "If you look at the statistics, we were even across the board – kills (both teams had 40), errors (both had 23), digs (DU had 60 to McKendree's 58)…where we struggled was when we let them get on runs. They got on three, four and five point runs…and then in the last set, we made errors at the wrong times."
Drury fell to 17-10 and 8-6 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. The Bearcats won for the 12
th time in 14 GLVC matches to go to 12-2 in the league and 17-9 overall.
Tori Foster had eight kills to lead Drury while
McKenna Poynter had 20 digs.
McKendree's Arela Williams had 14 kills and had 12 digs.
"(Williams) is a great player," said Bahner. "I wish we could have slowed her down better with our block and we did a better job of that late in the game but we didn't get our front court to consistently execute."
The Panthers are home again on Saturday when they host Illinois-Springfield. Game time is 3 p.m. in the O'Reilly Family Center.
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