SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The 5th ranked Drury Lady Panthers faced arguably one of their toughest tests of the season Thursday evening when they hosted the Lewis Flyers at the O’Reilly Family Event Center. But even the Flyers had no answers to Drury’s homecourt dominance as the Lady Panthers claimed an 86-63 to remain a perfect 11-0 home this season.
The Lady Panthers used their typical high intensity, pressure defense to take the win, forcing the Flyers into 29 turnovers while grabbing 18 steals.
“The defensive execution was not only fun to watch out there, but it was a taste of how dangerous this team can be,” remarked Drury head coach Molly Miller.
“Jessica Kelliher lives up to all the hype; she’s a great player,” said Miller. “So you’ve got to have post players that are willing to defend, and you need others to help, so it was a team effort against her.”
Despite the presence of Kelliher, the nation’s leading Division II scorer, Drury’s inside game was more than up to the challenge as junior Lucia Fernandez grabbed scoring honors with 23 points on 9 of 10 shooting from the field. Her inside partner, sophomore Hailey Diestelkamp added 13 while limiting Kelliher to just 16 points, nine below her season average.
“Lucia (Fernandez) going 9 of 10 was great, and she was strong on both ends. That’s been our theme all year, to get after it and to get teams out of what they do well,” said Miller.
Following an early 12-12 tie, the Lady Panthers went on a 21-4 run to grab a 33-16 lead in route to a halftime advantage of 42-23 as they forced the visiting Flyers into 15 first-half turnovers.
In addition to Fernandez and Diestelkamp, the Lady Panthers (23-2, 14-1) got 14 points from senior Heather Harman, while fellow senior Alice Heinzler chipped in with 12.
Gabby Green paced the Flyers (20-6, 13-2 in GLVC) with 19 points.
The Lady Panthers are back in action on Saturday when they host Wisconsin-Parkside in a 1 pm game at the O’Reilly Family Events Center.
