BOLIVAR, Mo. – Drury Softball clinched the program's first-ever Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Regular Championship in a sweep of Southwest Baptist on Sunday in Bolivar. The Panthers finished the regular season with a 31-19 record and the Bearcats ended with a 20-28 record.
GAME ONE
After a delayed start due to field conditions, Drury blew the game open in the first inning. The Panthers put up a five-spot.
Sophia Luetticke started the game with a leadoff triple. After two walks, the bases were loaded for
AJ Agers. Agers would then walk to score Luetticke.
Brooklyn LaChappa then singled up the middle to score
Taylor Hartsell and
Landry Cochran. LaChappa's hit would chase the Bearcats starting pitcher and get into their bullpen. The new pitcher would throw a wild pitch and allow Agers to score. Drury's final run of the inning came on a sac fly from
Victoria Garland to score LaChappa.
Drury added two more in the second inning courtesy of RBIs from
Taylor Hartsell and
AJ Agers.
Both offenses went silent until the bottom of the fourth when SBU scored for the first time. The Bearcats loaded the bases for a single to score two.
Gabrielle Bax extended the Drury lead in the top of the fifth with a single to score
Kenna Trower, who was running for
Kaley Adzick.
SBU had an offensive explosion in the sixth inning to move the game within two runs. The Bearcats scored five runs on small ball and walks. The struggles forced
AJ Agers out of the game and
Natalie Wilks into the circle.
Agers helped herself in the seventh inning with a hit that forced an error by the SBU shortstop that allowed Luetticke and Cochran to score. The two runs would end scoring at 11-7.
Brooklyn LaChappa led Drury with three hits. She also had two RBIs.
AJ Agers threw 5.2 innings and picked up her 11th win of the season.
Natalie Wilks closed the game out and struck two out in the final 1.1 innings.
GAME TWO
If the first game of the doubleheader was a slug fest, the second game was a pitcher's duel. Drury had two hits until the third inning and SBU was no-hit by
Jordyn Foley for the first 5.2 innings.
The Panthers scored their first run of the second game in the third inning.
Sophia Luetticke got the inning moving with a walk and then a steal of second, her 47th of the season.
Landry Cochran would then double to score Luetticke from second for the game's first run.
The Bearcats only light, offensively, was in the fifth inning when a two-out double ended Foley's no-hitter. The runner would then advance to third on a passed ball but was left stranded.
Gabrielle Bax added insurance to the Panthers' 1-0 lead in the seventh inning with an RBI single that scored
Brooklyn LaChappa. The Bearcats went down one, two, and three in the bottom half of the seventh to clinch Drury's first-ever regular season GLVC title with a 2-0 win over SBU.
Landry Cochran and
Brooklyn LaChappa both were 2-3 in the second game.
Jordyn Foley threw her sixth complete game of the season and allowed only two hits in the game.
Drury's second-year head coach
Brooke Gajewski had this to add about her team's historic regular season, "At the beginning of the year, this team set goals and values. Each and every day we embraced each and everyone one of them. This is a special moment in the history of this softball program and the journey is just beginning for this team's postseason hunt!"
NOTES
Drury ended the regular season tied with Lewis with a 22-6 GLVC record but with tiebreakers, the Panthers earned the top seed in the conference tournament. The tiebreaker had to go to the second one with Lewis and Drury splitting on March 28. The second tiebreaker as listed in the GLVC Softball handbook is "head-to-head competition with remaining institutions in order of conference standings." With Maryville being the next highest seed it went to the doubleheaders each team had against the Saints. Drury swept Maryville on March 16 and Lewis was swept by Maryville on April 13.
Since becoming a team in the 2008 season, Drury has never won a GLVC regular season title. The closest the program had come was when Drury won the GLVC West division in 2012 with a 22-12 GLVC record. The GLVC played division from 2012 to 2014. In that 2012 season, Drury went 0-2 in the conference tournament and did not make the regional tournament. In a non-divisional league, the highest a Drury team finished in the regular season was in the 2021, 2022, and 2024 seasons when they finished third.
UP NEXT
The GLVC will announce the 2025 GLVC Softball bracket later tonight on GLVC.com. The Panthers will be the top-seed in the league and will play the eight-seed to open up the double-elimination tournament in East Peoria, Illinois on April 30.
#WonDrury
