SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— The Drury Panthers came up short in a strong comeback bid against the visiting Bearcats from Southwest Baptist University on Saturday afternoon, falling by a score of 65-62 at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
 
The Bearcats had pulled away for a 15 point lead over the Panthers with a little over nine minutes to play in the game, but the Panthers slowly took advantage of opportunities and cut the margin to a single point with forty seconds remaining, but could not find the needed basket, including a missed three-point effort at the buzzer.
 
The loss, the first on the home court this season for the Panthers dropped them to 6-4 overall and to 0-3 in Great Lakes Valley Conference play.
 
"It comes down to effort," said Drury head coach Chris Foster.  "You can't give up 22 offensive rebounds, and then we didn't get the ball inside enough, so just a pretty frustrating day overall."
 
SBU held a 31-24 advantage over the Panthers at halftime and controlled the boards, outrebounding the Panthers 42-25 for the game.
 
The Panthers were led by a 17-point scoring effort from sophomore Logan Applegate.  Freshman Juok Riak added 14, with graduate student Adam Moore and sophomore Elijah Whitley dropping in 11 points each.
 
The Bearcats moved to 4-6 overall with the win and are now 1-2 in GLVC action.  Drenin Dinkins and David Hector split game-scoring honors, with each finishing with 13 points.
 
The Panthers will next host Southern Arkansas in a 4 pm game, Tuesday, December 19th at the O'Reilly Family Event Center in their final action of the 2023 calendar year.
 
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