Drury falls short to Illinois Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— Fans of long-range shooting were certainly entertained on Thursday night when the top two three-point shooting teams in the Great Lakes Valley Conference squared off at the O’Reilly Family Event Center in Springfield. 
 
But in the end, it was inside scoring that made the difference as the visiting Prairie Stars of Illinois-Springfield downed the Drury Panthers 99-89.
 
The two teams were deadly from beyond the three-point arc all night long, with the Prairie Stars, the league’s best three-point shooting club, hitting on 14 of 21 long-distance attempts, while the Panthers drained 15 of 28 from the outside.
 
But Illinois-Springfield proved much stronger down low, outscoring Drury 44-30 in the paint, and that was the difference in the contest, as the loss dropped the Panthers to 8-19 overall and 4-15 in the GLVC.
 
“They do a good job, they’ve got an inside-outside combo and they do a good job of sharing the ball, but we did our part to help them get rolling tonight,” said Drury head coach Chris Foster.  “You score 89 at home and that should be good enough to win, but we didn’t compete hard enough on the defensive end tonight.”
 
The Panthers were paced in scoring by graduate-student Preston Cook, who finished with a season-best 26 points, including 6 of 11 from three-point range.  Freshman Logan Applegate dropped in 22, with junior Riley Naeger adding 12.
 
Illinois-Springfield got a 26-point effort from Max Kunnert as the Prairie Stars improved to 18-9 overall and to 12-7 in GLVC action.
 
Next up for the Panthers will be their final regular season game on Saturday, February 25th, when they host Lewis in a 1 pm GLVC meeting at the O’Reilly Family Event Center.
 
 
 
 
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