Ed Beach (Drury Sports Information) SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The Drury Lady Panthers stayed unbeaten with a 76-54 win over Harding on Tuesday at the O’Reilly Family Event Center.
Drury, who was ranked 18th nationally in the WBCA/NCAA-II poll earlier in the day, improved to 5-0 while Harding took their first loss of the season dropping to 4-1.
Lady Panthers guard Paige Wilson led all scorers with 26 points and the Bartlesville, Oklahoma native tied a Drury single game record hitting eight three-pointers. The senior was 8 for 14 from behind the arc and matched a Drury record shared by Alice Heinzler and Annie Armstrong with eight made three’s.
“Paige is a clutch shooter and about as pure as you can get when it comes to form,” said Drury head coach Molly Miller. “You have a lot of confidence when you see that thing going up that’s it’s going to go in.”
Drury jumped out to a 24-14 lead after one quarter and took a 35-22 advantage to the locker room at halftime as they held the Lady Bisons to 29 percent shooting from the field in the first half.
“I was proud of them in how we executed our game plan on defense,” said Miller. “The way we executed, pretty much to perfection, was what caused 20 turnovers. If we can continue to get teams out of their comfort zone, we’re going to keep having success.”
Heather Harman added 17 points for Drury and was 9 for 11 from the free throw line. Briana Jones added 13 points and six rebounds coming off of the bench.
Former West Plains star A’ndi Haney had 11 points to lead Harding.
The Lady Panthers are home for two games in the Ramada Plaza Hotel / Oasis Convention Center Thanksgiving Classic on Friday and Saturday at the O’Reilly Family Event Center. Drury takes on Oklahoma Panhandle State on Friday at 5:30 p.m. The Lady Panthers then take on an Emporia State team ranked 2nd in NCAA-II on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
