Defending champion Drury scored the game's first 17 points and the second-seeded Lady Panthers went on to dominate Rockhurst 87-55 to reach the Great Lakes Valley Conference Championship tourney semifinals with their effort Thursday afternoon at the Family Arena.
Nationally 10th-ranked Drury, in winning its 14th straight game to get to 24-3 overall, placed five players in double-figures for the fourth straight game and fifth time in their last seven games in advancing to Saturday's semifinal matchup at noon vs. third-seed Bellarmine. The Knights (22-3) defeated Saint Joseph's 59-52 in Thursday's earlier quarterfinal.
"It'll be a scrappy (game)," said Drury coach Molly Miller, after the victory represented career coaching win No. 50 (50-7) for the second-year Lady Panthers' boss. "Bellarmine gets after it on defense, puts a lot of pressure on you. They are hard-nosed … it'll be a good battle between two really good teams."
Thursday's, however, wasn't.
Drury eliminated any suspense by scoring the game's first 17 points and rolling to a 28-9 lead after one period against the Hawks (15-13), who were making their first-ever appearance in the GLVC tourney quarterfinals.
That Lady Panthers' advantage grew to 51-15 at the halftime break before Rockhurst outscored DU 40-36 in the second half well after the fact, as Drury improved to 4-0 at the Family Arena, site of its GLVC title run as the No. 2 seed a year ago.
Annie Armstrong led the way for DU with 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists, four steals and no turnovers in just 22 minutes. Adrienne Horn scored 14 points off the bench – her ninth double-digit scoring effort in her last 11 games – while the Lady Panthers got 11 points each from Brook Duncan, Paige Wilson and Addy Roller.
The starting guard trio of Roller, Alice Heinzler and Armstrong combined for 14 assists and no turnovers as Drury amassed 26 assists as a team, second on the season only to the 27 the Lady Panthers had last Thursday in the regular season finale against Missouri S&T.
Drury shot 56 percent from the field for the game (36 of 64), including a 22-for-37 showing over the first half. And defensively, the Lady Panthers were even more impressive – Rockhurst made just 4 of 27 shots in the first half and finished 18 of 59 for the game (31 percent), the 12th consecutive game Drury has held an opponent below 41 percent.
"I was very pleased with the energy we came out with today … it's called March Madness for a reason, because there are always potential for upsets," Miller said. "When you give teams hope that you feel you should beat, they'll keep nipping and clawing and getting after you. So I was very proud of our effort … I was happy the shots were falling, but defensively, I couldn't be more pleased with the effort."
Drury also claimed a final 40-28 rebounding advantage, led by eight boards from Hannah Dressler and Armstrong's seven. Lauren Meyers, who grabbed 15 rebounds in DU's 82-64 win over Rockhurst in Kansas City on January 21st, had just four on Thursday.
Jillian Myers and Mary Dineen had 14 points each to lead the Hawks.
