SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Drake women's basketball battled the Missouri State Bears, two of the nations' premier rebounding teams, in a physical MVC contest this afternoon. Missouri State held off a second-half charge by the Bulldogs in a 64-54 contest.
 
Maggie Bair led the Bulldogs with 20 points, her third 20-point performance of the season. Grace Berg added 14 points and led Drake on the glass with eight rebounds. Katie Dinnebier had another solid game running the Bulldog offense with six assists.
 
After two empty possessions to start the game, both teams found a spark with. Missouri State opened the scoring with a three. Grace Berg and Sarah Beth Gueldner answered with a pair of triples for the Bulldogs.
 
Drake struggled with Missouri State's interior game early but matched the Bears blow-for-blow in the first period. The hosts eventually built a 20-15 advantage, the largest of the first quarter, capped by three-straight buckets by reserve post Jade Masagayo.
 
At the end of the first, with a chance to tie, an Ashley Iiams corner three rattled out and gave Missouri State a 22-19 lead after one.
 
Anna Miller then got the Bulldogs back on the board in the second quarter with a lay-in. Berg then buried her second three-pointer of the day to maintain the Bulldogs' narrow deficit.
 
Midway through the second quarter, Taylor Woodhouse hit back-to-back threes to extend the Missouri State lead to eight. After Courtney Becker halted the Bears' run, MSU regrew their lead to 10 points, their largest of the first half.
 
An Aniya Thomas strip and score gave Missouri State a 39-31 lead at the half.
 
The second half started with a handful of missed opportunities on both ends of the floor. Missouri State was able to extend their lead to 11 before the Bulldogs started to make some noise.
 
With just over four minutes remaining in the third period, Maggie Bair sunk a pair of freebies and Taylor McAulay scored her first points of the day to trim the lead to single digits. After three-straight defensive stops, Bair was assisted by Miller to get within five. The Bulldogs outscored MSU 9-6 in the third quarter and trailed 45-40 after three.
 
The Bears rebounded with another 8-0 run early in the fourth quarter, reclaiming a double-digit lead.
 
Drake rallied yet again to challenge, trailing by just six with under a minute to play. The Bulldogs' second-half effort was not enough as Missouri State held on to win, 64-54.
 
"Missouri State is a physical team…our indecision and turnover woes plagued us again," Suzie Glazer Burt Head Coach Allison Pohlman explained after the loss. "When the other team has that many more shots than we do, it makes things tough for us. Defensively, we were fantastic in the third quarter, wish we could've executed on the offensive end…just one of those games where we were high-risk, not high-reward."
 
Drake will conclude their three-game road swing with a mid-week rivalry matchup at UNI. The Bulldogs and Panthers will conclude their regular season series on Wednesday, Feb. 1 in Cedar Falls.
 
 
TEAM NOTES

• Drake's loss snapped a four-game winning streak and moved its record to 12-6 including a 7-3 mark in the Missouri Valley Conference.
• Drake was outrebounded by Missouri State 38-33.
• Drake outscored the Lady Bears 14-7 in transition.
• The Bulldogs' 54 points, a season-low, marked just the fourth time Drake has scored less than 80 points in a single game this season.
• The Bulldogs are now 3-2 when playing on Saturdays and 7-2 in the month of January.

 
INDIVIDUAL NOTES

• Senior forward Maggie Bair led Drake with 20 points, her third 20-plus point performance of the year.
• Grace Berg added 14 points including a perfect 3-for-3 from behind the three-point arc.
• Berg also led the Bulldogs on the glass with eight rebounds.
• Courtney Becker, Katie Dinnebier, Sarah Beth Gueldner, and Bair all gathered five rebounds.
• Dinnebier dished out a team-high six assists.

 
THE SERIES

• Missouri State now leads the all-time series with Drake by a 51-44 margin.