SPRINGFIELD, Mo.-- The Drury Panthers kicked off their 2023-24 home season at the O'Reilly Family Event Center on Tuesday night as they easily turned back the Ambassadors from Ozark Christian  106-58 to move to 3-0 on the new season.
 
The Panthers followed up their two wins in the SBU Classic the previous weekend to open the season, with an up-tempo victory over OCC that was never in doubt.
 
Drury raced to an early first-half advantage over the visiting Ambassadors, hitting on 8 of 15 three-point attempts the opening 20 minutes of play and 21 of their 37 first half shots in route to a comfortable 57-23 halftime advantage.
 
"You like to start every game fast and carry that throughout the game," said Drury head coach Chris Foster.  "Our first few possessions, I didn't think we started as quickly as we wanted, but once we got stuff going in transition I thought they settled in good."
 
The Panthers had each player in the lineup score on the night, with five players reaching double figures, paced by 13 points from freshman Luke Stubbs.  Junior Brock Wakefield added 12, with 11 points each from graduate-student Adam Moore, senior Quenton Shelton and sophomore Elijah Whitley.
 
"I think one of our biggest strengths is our depth and we used that last week at the SBU tournament," said Foster.  "Different guys on different nights works for us and our guys are committed to that."
 
The Ambassadors, who dropped to 0-3 on the young season were led in scoring by Andre Johnson, who finished with 17 points.
 
For the game, Drury finished at 59 percent shooting from the field and were 13 of 26 from three-point range, for a 50 percent effort.  They won the rebounding battle as well, 46-30 over Ozark Christian.
 
The Panthers return to action on Thursday, November 16, when they travel to Russellville, Arkansas to face Arkansas Tech in a 7:30 contest.
 
 
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