ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis women's basketball team was unable to match No. 23 Drury's shooting throughout the evening Thursday and ended up on the short end of an 89-68 decision to the Lady Panthers in its Great Lakes Valley Conference contest at the O'Reilly Family Events Center.

The Tritons drop to 11-13 overall including 9-9 in the GLVC while Drury improves to 19-4, 14-3 GLVC.

The game was tied at five early after a layup from Emerson Weller 3:08 into the contest. The Lady Panthers regained the lead on the next possession on a jumper from Beth Matas Martin sparking a 6-0 run and Drury wouldn't trail the remainder of the game.

UMSL trailed by as many as seven points in the opening stanza but got a three from Jalysa Stokes just before the end of the quarter to pull within four at the quarter break.

Alex Wolff pulled the Tritons to within two hitting a jumper 0:20 into the second frame but UMSL wouldn't get closer than that the rest of the way. The Lady Panthers stretched their lead to six with 1:16 left in the half on a layup by Sara Mendel.

Stokes answered on the other end with another three pull the Tritons back within three but Makaiya Brooks was fouled on a three-point attempt in the final 0:10 half and hit all three free throws to give Drury a 37-31 lead at the half.

Both sides shot the ball well in the third quarter as UMSL connected on 54 percent (7-for-15) from the floor in the stanza but the Lady Panthers were even better connecting on 79 percent of their attempts in the quarter including 3-of-5 from downtown. Drury outscored the Tritons by eight in the quarter to take a 64-50 lead into the final 10 minutes of play.

The Tritons shot over 50 percent from the floor again in the final stanza but the Lady Panthers continued to have the hot hand shooting 64 percent in the frame and eventually led by as many as 23 in the final minute of play.

UMSL finished the game shooting 48 percent (28-for-58) from the floor including 3-of-9 from three but shot only 56 percent at the foul line. Stokes led all scorers with a game-high 24 points while Amaya Blake and Morgan Ramthun added 12 and 10 points respectively.

Drury shot 61 percent (34-for-56) from the field in the game including 11-of-20 from three and 71 percent at the foul line. It outrebounded the Tritons 33-to-22 in the contest. The Lady Panthers had four players reach double figures in scoring in the contest and were led by Brooks and Caitlynn Daniels with 19 points apiece while Reese Schaaf recorded a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds. Matas Martin dropped in 11 points.

UMSL continues its three-game road trip on Saturday as it heads to Bolivar, Mo., to take on Southwest Baptist at 1 p.m. at the Meyer Sports Center. The Bearcats fell to McKendree 99-62 on Thursday.