SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— The showdown labeled as the "Highway 13 Catfight" lived up to the billing on Saturday afternoon at the O'Reilly Family Event Center as the Drury Lady Panthers and Southwest Baptist Bearcats went toe-to-toe throughout, and in the end, it was the Bearcats that prevailed with a 66-65 win.
 
The 12th-ranked Lady Panthers pulled to within one point of the final score on a shot by junior Caitlyn Daniels with 40 seconds to play, then had a final opportunity with less than two seconds remaining, but failed on a final attempt at the buzzer.
 
The Bearcats used a 13-0 scoring run to close the third quarter to set up the thrilling finish, then the two battled down the stretch in the final ten minutes.
 
"They kept pounding the ball in on us and were the better team todat," said Drury head coach Kaci Bailey.  "I thought we played better the second half, but we didn't play our kind of basketball in the first and we had to dig ourselves out of a hole the entire game."
 
The Lady Panthers, who dropped to 8-2 on the season and 3-2 in Great Lakes Valley Conference play were led in scoring by graduate student Beth Matas Martin, who had 21 points, including 6 of 11 made shots from three-point range.  Sophomore Reese Schaaf added 20 and junior Anna Hitt finished with 10 for Drury.
 
The Bearcats improved to 5-5 overall and 2-3 in GLVC play and were led in scoring by Claudia Vanzant, who had 15 points.
 
The Lady Panthers return to action on Tuesday, December 19th when they host Missouri Southern in a 6 pm game at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
 
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