The Drury Panthers opened play in the DoubleTree Thanksgiving Classic Tuesday night with an impressive showing against the Union Bulldogs, claiming a 91-69 win at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
 
The Panthers used a pair of impressive offensive runs to seal the deal. They opened the contest, scoring five consecutive three-point bombs, then raced away from the Bulldogs midway through the second half with a non-stop offensive explosion.
 
The Panthers drained ten three-point shots in the first half and were up 52-42 at the break, but saw the Bulldogs battle back to trail by just seven early in the second stanza, but a 17-0 scoring run pushed Drury in front by 24 with under eight minutes to play and from there, they coasted to their third win in a row and improved to 3-1 on the season.
 
"I thought we got the right shots early," said Drury head coach Chris Foster.  "I believe we're a good enough shooting team, if we get the right kind of looks. I mean, I don't think we'll shoot 50 percent every night, but we are a good-shooting team."
 
Sophomore Juok Riak posted a season-best 20 points to pace the Panther scoring.  Senior Logan Applegate added 18 and junior Elijah Whitley, off the bench had a career-best 15 points, including a perfect six-for-six from the field, and three-for-three from long range.
 
After hitting on 10 of 16 three-point attempts in the first half, Drury finished the night 14 of 28 from beyond the arc and also captured the rebounding battle, 39-29 over Union.
 
"They had 42 points at the half, and if we don't give them offensive rebounds in the first half, they only have 28, most off of second chances," added Foster  "But at halftime we did a better job of moving bodies around and that was a big difference."
 
The visitors from Tennessee, got 14 points each from Jeremiah Littlepage and Kaleim Taylor to  top their scoring as they lost for the first time this season after opening the year with four wins.
 
The Panthers will be back in action on the final night of the DoubleTree Thanksgiving Classic on Wednesday, November 27th, when they take on Central Missouri in a 7:45 pm game at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.