Drake’s junior duo of Brandy Dahir and Lindsay Whorton combined for 54 points to lead the Bulldogs past the Missouri State Lady Bears, 81-68, in Missouri Valley Conference women’s basketball action Sunday afternoon at Hammons Student Center.
Whorton went 7-of-10 from the floor, including 4-of-4 from three-point range, and scored 24 of her 27 points in the second half, as DU hit 68 percent of its field goal tries after intermission. Dahir matched Whorton’s 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting, while pulling down five rebounds and handing out four assists.
The Lady Bears looked poised to build on Friday night’s 70-60 win over Creighton with a strong performance against the Bulldogs over the first 16 minutes of Sunday’s contest. Missouri State led all but 49 seconds of the first half, as junior guard Tahnee Balerio buried a three-pointer just 19 seconds into the ballgame and went on to score nine of the Lady Bears’ first 13 points. MSU led by as many as nine in the first half by holding DU to just six points over a nine-minute span.
But Drake recovered behind Dahir’s 12 first-half points and the shooting of sophomore guard Ashleigh Brady, as the Bulldogs seized control of the game by outscoring Missouri State 43-19 over a 15-minute period spanning the final three-plus minutes of the first half and the first 11:21 of the second stanza.
After MSU built a 26-17 advantage with 3:35 left in the first period, Brady knocked down jumpers on three straight Drake possessions to make it a two-point game. Sophomore Lauren Dybing then canned a three-pointer with 16 seconds to play in the half to give the Bulldogs a slim 29-28 lead at the break.
Whorton, who hit just one of her five three-point attempts in the game’s first 20 minutes, drilled her first trey of the second half at the 17:05 mark to give the Bulldogs a 36-34 advantage. Her next one extended the DU lead to six points and helped ignite an 18-4 scoring spurt in which the Independence, Mo., native scored 13 points. The run was capped by Whorton’s fourth three-pointer of the half that pushed the Bulldogs’ lead to 60-45 with 8:39 to play.
Drake upped its lead to 17 points on Dahir’s jumper with 4:49 left on the clock, and the Lady Bears would get no closer than eight points down the stretch.
In all, Drake shot 56.6 percent from the field and converted 30 field goal attempts, both season-highs for a Missouri State opponent.
The Bulldogs’ victory spoiled another standout performance from Balerio, who finished with a game-high 32 points. The Buhler, Kan., product went 11-of-21 from the floor and 4-of-8 from beyond the three-point arc to register her fourth 30+ point game of the season.
Sophomore forward Breton Wyett contributed 14 points and a team-high five rebounds for Missouri State.
Next up, Missouri State will travel to Carbondale, Ill., for a 7:05 p.m. match-up with MVC regular-season champion Southern Illinois on Thursday, March 1. The Lady Bears will return home next Saturday, March 3, to wrap up the regular season with a 7:05 p.m. contest against Evansville.
