ROLLA, Mo.— The Drury Panthers battled from 11 points down in the second half and had chances to take the lead late in their game at Missouri S&T on Thursday, but when they missed opportunities to move in front, the Miners closed out the game for an 81-73 win in Rolla.
 
Drury trailed 39-30 at halftime, falling nine points behind when Missouri S&T's Julien Smith hit a 25-foot shot just before the intermission. The Miners took their biggest lead of the game as they scored on the first possession of the second half to go up by 11, but Drury responded and pulled within five points of the lead moments later.
 
It became a one-point game as a Brock Wakefield three-pointer made the score 63-62 with 9:00 remaining. Missouri S&T didn't relinquish the lead, though, and hit free throws to pull away in the final minute.
 
"We did fight hard, but it's hard to win whenever you turn it over 18 times and you don't have enough to recover from those," said Drury assistant coach Chris Carr. "They wound up shooting five more shots than us. It was a one-possession game for so much of the second half that if we could have had those back, the way we were shooting it, we would have been up. We rebounded well and did some things defensively to be disruptive, but we've got a young team and we've got to keep working to get better."
 
The Panthers shot 51 percent hitting 29 of their 57 attempts, but ended the game with 18 turnovers, while the Miners committed 13 turnovers.
 
Riley Naeger led Drury with 22 points, while Wakefield added 12.
 
Ikenna Okeke had 22 points and 8 rebounds for Missouri S&T.
 
The Miners shot 57 percent hitting 35 of 62 attempts and connected on 7 of their 19 threes.
 
Drury head coach Chris Foster missed the game with a scheduled medical appointment out of the state.  
 
The Panthers are idle on Saturday and return for a home game on Thur., Feb. 9 when they host Maryville at 7:45 pm in the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
 
 
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