EAST PEORIA, Ill.- The 14th ranked Drury Panthers will play for their first Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament championship in program history after their 3-2 semifinal win (19-25, 25-18, 25-17, 21-25, 15-10) over Illinois Springfield on Friday at the Eastside Centre in East Peoria, Illinois.
 
The Panthers, seeded second in the tournament, improved to 27-5 while the third-seeded Prairie Stars fell to 25-7.
 
Drury lost the opening set 25-19 but bounced back to win the next two sets. Illinois Springfield pushed the match to a fifth set with a 25-21 win in the fourth. The Panthers scored six of the first eight points in the fifth and hung on to clinch the match with a 15-10 victory in the final set.
 
Senior Bentley Mara led Drury with a career high with 24 kills and posted a .400 hitting percentage in the match. Kendra Sater had a triple-double with 51 assists, 16 digs, and 11 kills while Bree Schmidt chipped in with 25 digs.
 
Drury, who had never been beyond the quarterfinal round of the GLVC tournament before this season, will play 25th ranked Rockhurst on Saturday at noon for the conference championship. The fourth-seeded Hawks advanced with a 3-0 win (25-20, 25-19, 25-20) over number seed Lewis in Friday's other GLVC semifinal match. 
 
 
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