OWENSBORO, Ky. - Quincy's Hawks fought off a furious Drury rally down the stretch to beat the third-seeded Panthers 71-58 in the opening round of the NCAA-II Midwest Regional here Saturday afternoon at the Owensboro Sportscenter.
The sixth-seeded Hawks, who avenged a 12-point loss at Drury in mid-January, improved to 21-8 and will play the Bellarmine-Central State winner in Sunday's semifinals. Drury's season ended at 23-7.
Justin Brock, a 6-8 junior, had 18 points and 12 rebounds, Billy Baptist, a 6-5 senior, added 18 points and 10 boards and senior guard Mookie Pierre had 16 points for Quincy, which outrebounded the Panthers 34-18 for the contest.
The Hawks used a spurt at the end of the first half to build a 36-29 lead at the break, paced by 14 points each from Baptist and 6-8 junior Brock.
Quincy outscored the Panthers 8-2 to start the second half to stretch the lead to double-figures, including an alley-oop dunk by Baptist to make it 44-31 with 15:23 left. Drury - with three freshmen on the floor at virtually all times in the second half - made a run midway through the final half, closing to four (52-48) with a 7-0 run capped by Alex Hall's basket with 7:30 remaining.
From there, the Hawks would push it back to close to double-figures, then the Panthers would answer to cut it back to four again, the last time (60-56) on Dennon Mitchell's 3-pointer with 4:25 left. But the Hawks went 8 for 8 at the free-throw line over the next three minutes and delivered the death blow when Josh Edmonds made a 3-pointer with just over a minute left to account for the final 13-point margin.
Hall finished an outstanding freshman campaign with 18 points and the sophomore Mitchell added 17 points as each sank four 3-pointers for the Panthers, who didn't have a senior on the squad and increased last season's final victory total by 10 (13 to 23).
The Panthers were hampered in the second half by the absence of junior standout Chase Elliott to an apparent chest injury in the closing seconds of the first half and was transported to an Owensboro hospital.
"That was a tough loss," Drury coach Steve Hesser said of Elliott's 13.5 points per game, second on the squad. "But I'm proud of our guys, because they gave some effort in the second half. The two things we talked about - defense and rebounding - we didn't do a very good job of today.
"Overall, we had a good season, and I'm proud of our effort in the second half."
The Panthers hit just 41 percent from the field (20 of 49), including a 9-for-22 effort from 3-point range (41 percent). Quincy made 52 percent of its shots (25 of 48), including 11 of 18 in the second half (61 percent).
With 482 points on the campaign, Hall came up just short of the DU freshman record 504 points scored by former Panther great Lonnie Holmes in the 1991-92 season.
The 23 victories were the second-most by the Panthers in Hesser's six seasons at Drury; his 2007-08 team won 25 contests.
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