SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— The Drury Panthers fell short in the second half as they lost 76-56 to the McKendree Bearcats on Saturday at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
 
Drury's record dropped to 13-11 and 6-10 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, while the Bearcats moved to 15-9 and 9-8 in the GLVC.
 
After twenty minutes of play, only one point separated the two sides as Drury trailed 37-36. The Panthers led by seven points at one time during the first half after sophomore guard PJ Ngambi hit a three with 11:44 on the clock off a pass from Riley Naeger.
 
The Bearcats came out of the intermission with a 7-0 run in the first 4:08 of the second half. After some back-and-forth scoring between the two teams, the Bearcats took control of the game at the 7:46 mark when Caleb Zurliene hit a three, increasing the visitors lead to 62-47. The hosts were only able to cut the lead down to 11 after Brock Wakefield hit two free throws at the 5:45 mark. McKendree then went on an 8-0 run to put the game to bed with 2:14 remaining.
 
The Panthers were without head coach Chris Foster, who missed his second straight game with COVID-19.
 
Wakefield led the Panthers in scoring with 13 points, while Elijah Whitley and Quenton Shelton also put up double-digits in the scoring column with 11 and 10 points, respectively.
 
Milos Vicentic posted a game-high 22 points and added two blocks to his ledger, while Zurliene added 11 points and eight rebounds.
 
Drury is on the road on Thursday when they travel to Rolla to face Missouri S&T for a 7:30 pm game.
 
 
 
 
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