SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— Drury opened a four-game series against Upper Iowa with an 8-4 win over the Peacocks on Friday at Mark Worley Field at Meador Park in Springfield. The series was scheduled to be played in Fayette, Iowa, but moved to Springfield due to winter weather.
 
The Panthers improved to 8-11 and 6-3 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, while Upper Iowa dropped to 6-14 and 3-6 in the GLVC.
 
Drury took a 2-1 lead with two runs in the second inning, scoring on a pair of wild pitches. The Panthers scored four runs in the third without a hit as they posted runs on a wild pitch, a bases-loaded walk, a passed ball, and a balk.
 
Cody Bahl (4-1) got the win and took a no-hitter into the sixth inning. The left-hander from Lee's Summit, Missouri, retired fifteen straight batters from the final two outs of the first inning to the first batter of the sixth. Bahl went six innings and allowed two hits, three runs, and three earned runs, with one walk and nine strikeouts.
 
Upper Iowa threatened with two base-runners in the eighth, and they added a run in the ninth and had men on first and third base with one out before Drury got back-to-back fly balls to close out the game.
 
Briar Stinson went 3 for 4 for the Panthers with two runs scored and a walk. Luke Burk was 2 for 4 with two runs, and he belted his team-leading eighth home run of the year.
 
"Winning the first game of a series is what you want to do, and Cody has been great for us right out of the chute and has allowed us to win these first games every time," said Drury head coach Scott Nasby. "We've got to step it up now with the next few guys that go to the mound and execute much better at the plate tomorrow."
 
The two teams resume their series with a doubleheader on Saturday. Game one starts at 1 pm at Mark Worley Field at Meador Park.
 
 
 
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