SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The Rogers State Men's Basketball team suffered its first defeat of the season on Saturday at Drury University in a battle of unbeatens.
The Hillcats (6-1) never led against the Panthers (5-0), falling 89-64 to the hosts in the final game of the DoubleTree Thanksgiving Classic at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.
Drury jumped out to a 7-0 lead and then extended the lead to 19-3 less than eight minutes in. The Hillcats were unable to recover from that point, only able to cut the gap to 11 points late in the first half.
The Hillcats were unable to defend a hot shooting Panther team that finished with 15 three pointers, shooting 54 percent from behind the arc. Drury shot 56 percent from the field for the game.
On the other end of the floor, the Hillcats had their worst shooting game of the season, finishing at just 35 percent from the field and 24 percent from three-point range.
Brewster Peacock and
Darraja Parnell finished with 10 points each to lead the Hillcats. Peacock was a joint leader for the game with eight rebounds. He also had a block, steal and two assists in 31 minutes.
Parnell came off the bench to hit double figures with five rebounds, a steal and an assist in 21 minutes.
Joining Peacock with a game high rebounds was
Marques Sumner, who had eight boards to go along with six points and a pair of assists.
Christopher Miller and Gabriel Parnell joined Parnell with five rebounds. Ferreira added nine points and a block off the bench, while Miller finished with eight points and three assists.
Rogers State continued to excel at the free-throw line. The Hillcats were 14-of-16 from the stripe, shooting 87.5 percent.
The Hillcats also outrebounded the Panthers 39-33 on the glass, including 15 offensive rebounds. However, RSU had just 13 second-chance points off of the offensive rebounds.
Rogers State will look to rebound as the Hillcats officially open up the MIAA era with their first MIAA conference game. The Hillcats will tip-off the MIAA conference season against Central Oklahoma on December 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Claremore Expo Center.
