sophomore point guard katie laviolette (left)recorded her first career double-double as she scored 15 points and tied a career-high with 11 assists to lead the golden bears (17-9, 8-5 nsic) to an 82-65 road victory at minnesota-crookston (6-20, 3-10 nsic) on saturday afternoon.

laviolette finished the game 7-15 from the field and added five rebounds and four steals in 35 minutes of action. Senior guard ashley smith's (right)16 points were a team-high, also in 35 minutes of play. Smith added five rebounds and shot 5-10 from the field and 2-4 from behind the arc in the game.

the first half was back and forth with four ties and 11 lead changes as minnesota-crookston led 30-29 with 6:03 to play. But the a pair of buckets by sophomore mary schroeder and freshman candace olstad helped spark concordia on a 13-2 run capped off by a three-pointer by rikiee ellis to take a commanding 44-32 lead with just 1:38 to play in the half. The bears went into the locker room ahead 46-35 after stephanie westman sank a buzzer-beating jump shot.

the second half was cruise control for concordia but the golden eagles did cut the deficit to six points, 47-41, just over three minutes into the half. But laviolette sparked a 5-0 run as she delivered a three-point play and assisted olstad on another bucket to push the lead back to 11.

the golden eagles only cut the margin to single-digits one more time when they cut the score to 54-46. But a 14-3 run led by three consecutive baskets by sophomore amanda behnke paired with senior guard nakia carlisle's five points and three assists as concordia opened up a 19 point lead, 68-49, with 8:10 to play in the game.

the lead was pushed as high as 21 points, 79-58 with just over two minutes of play en route to the 82-65 win.

the bears dominated the glass with a 43-36 rebounding edge led by westman's team-high 10 rebounds off the bench in just six minutes of action. Behnke contribued nine rebounds while scoring 11 points on 5-9 shooting.

carlisle added nine points and five assists for concordia in 23 minutes of play while ellis scored six points to round out the starting lineup's points.

the concordia bench was effective as they outscored the umc bench 25-4 led by sophomore center whitney smetana's eight points on 3-3 shooting with two rebounds in 11 minutes of floor time.

concordia returns to action tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. When they travel to take on bemidji state, who pulled out a 74-72 win over winona state this afternoon at the buzzer. With a victory tomorrow, the bears will seal the third seed in the nsic red baron women's basketball classic, securing a first round home game in the tournament.