Photo: Terry Griffin/Drury Athletics
Drury head coach Molly Miller picked up multiple national awards as she was named the NCAA-II Coach of the Year by the recruiting website World Exposure Report. Earlier, she was also honored as the NCAA-II Coach of the Year for the second straight season by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.
Miller led the Lady Panthers to an undefeated season at 32-0, the Great Lakes Valley Conference regular season title with a 20-0 league record, the team’s fourth straight GLVC tournament championship, and a number one national ranking. 2019-20 marked Drury’s second consecutive undefeated regular season. Miller also earned the GLVC Coach of the Year honor for the second year in a row.
2019-20 was Miller’s sixth year as head coach at Drury, and she owns a career record of 180-17 (.913). Her teams have gone 67-1 in the last two seasons, and they have won at least 30 games for four years in a row, compiling a 128-8 mark over that span. Miller’s teams have won 105 out of the 110 games they have played within the GLVC during her six seasons at the helm, and they have never lost a conference game at home having gone 55-0 in league play.
Photo: Terry Griffin/Drury Ahtletics
The Division II Conference Commissioners Association also named Lady Panthers forward Hailey Diestelkamp as the recipient of the Ron Lenz National Player of the Year award as well as being named a First Team All-American. It marks the first time in program history a player from Drury has earned the D2CCA’s Ron Lenz award.
Diestelkamp averaged 21.6 points per game, 7.4 rebounds, shot .522 from the field and registered 2.8 steals per game. The senior from Owensville, Missouri, became the first player in Drury history to surpass 2,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds, and Diestelkamp’s 2,321 career points led all active players in Division II at the end of the year. She is Drury’s all-time leader in scoring and rebounding in addition to being fourth all-time in steals.
Diestelkamp’s point total also ranks her 24th in the history of NCAA-II women’s basketball, and she is the sixth player ever at the D-II level to reach 2,300 points and 1,100 career rebounds.
Diestelkamp set a team and GLVC single-game scoring record with 53 points in the final home game of her career against Rockhurst on Feb. 29. She managed to score in double-figures in 30 of Drury’s 32 games, and she notched 12 double-doubles last season. Diestelkamp was named the NCAA-II Player of the Week twice during 2019-20 in addition to earning MVP honors in the GLVC Tournament for the third year in a row as she helped the Lady Panthers to their fourth consecutive conference title.
Diestelkamp was also named the NCAA-II Player of the Year by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association for the second year in a row, and she was named an All-American by the WBCA. She has also been named the 2020 Midwest Region Player of the Year by the D2CCA, was the Great Lakes Valley Conference Player of the Year, and the MVP of the GLVC tournament after the Lady Panthers won their fourth straight league title.
Drury finished the season undefeated at 32-0, won the GLVC championship, and they are the number one ranked team in NCAA-II.
