SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— The Drury Panthers improved to 6-0 on the season as they opened Great Lakes Valley Conference play on Tuesday night at the O'Reilly Family Event Center with a 76-70 win over the Bearcats of Southwest Baptist University.
With Drury clinging to a one-point lead at 69-68, sophomore
Asa Hutchinson dropped in a short hook shot to push the Panther advantage to 71-68. Forty seconds later, he drove the baseline and scored again to make it 73-70 and three Drury free throws with four ticks on the clock remaining, provided the final margin, giving the Panthers the conference opener victory.
"That's what we talked about at halftime, whatever happens, let's maintain our spirit and not let one bad play carry over," said Drury head coach
Steve Hesser. "Asa was in foul trouble all night, but he made two big plays late, and then we made a stop, and that was big."
Drury had difficulty penetrating the Bearcat inside defense throughout the contest, and turned to perimeter scoring, hitting on 11 of 27 shots from beyond the arc.
"They're six-ten, six-six and six-five, and that was our concern going into the game, wondering which one of our little guards could guard them," said Hesser. "We lost the rebound battle by just one and won the three-point shooting, so that helped us get this."
Junior guard
Conley Garrison paced the Drury attack with a double-double on the night, scoring 15 and pulling down a game-high ten rebounds. Senior
Isaac Johnson shared scoring honors as he added 15, all coming on three-point jumpers. Junior
Cal Hartley finished with 14, with Hutchinson and junior
Brandon Emmert contributing ten each, giving Drury five in double figures. Brady Smith topped the scoring for the Bearcats (5-2, 0-1) with 16 points.
Southwest Baptist owned a slim rebound margin at 34-33, and both clubs were 11 of 14 from the free throw line on the night.
The Panthers are idle until December 14th when they return to action hosting Central Christian in a 7 pm meeting at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
#allweDUiswin
