The race for the northern sun lead in the regular season standings intensified as concordia university (11-8, 8-2 nsic) defeated msu moorhead (14-5, 8-2 nsic) 80-78 on freshman kali olstad's (left) game winning 10 foot jump shot on the baseline as time expired on saturday evening at the gangelhoff center in st. Paul, minn. The bears committed just three turnovers while forcing 13 and outscored msum 17-2 in points off turnovers.

junior center amanda behnke (right) had a career-night for concordia, scoring a career-high 29 points while hauling in a season-high 14 rebounds to record her fifth double-double of the season. She was set up all night by junior point guard katie laviolette who added her third double-double of the year with 15 points and 13 assists.

the golden bears took a 76-70 lead with 2:29 to play when junior kelly lund drained a three-pointer. Concordia would go the next 1:35 without scoring as the dragons cut the lead to three with a pair of jessica fesenmaier free throws with 1:02 to play.

concordia extended the lead back to five when lund converted a pair of free throws just eight seconds later.

fesenmaier converted a layup for msum just 10 seconds later, cutting the score back to three, 78-75 with :44 on the clock.

with the shot clock winding down, sophomore abby nielsen was forced to take a difficult shot that was blocked by katie walden. The dragons rebounded with :14 and walden hit a layup with just nine seconds remaining and converted the three-point play to tie the score at 78.

laviolette (right) took the ball up for the bears, and with time winding down, she found an open k.olstad on the baseline and she delivered the game-winner for the golden bears.

it was a tight-game throughout with the largest lead in the game being an eight point advantage for concordia midway through the second half. There were 10 ties and five lead changes with the dragons largest lead being an early six point edge in the first half.

concordia struggled mightily from three-point territory and the free throw line, but came up huge late in the game from both spots. The bears started 0-13 from three-point territory. Sophomore candace olstad (left) finally delivered concordia's first three-pointer with 12:09 to play to tie the score at 51. Cu would go 3-6 from three-point range starting with c.olstad's make. The bears also went 4-4 from the stripe in the final 5:28 with laviolette and lund each hitting a pair.

for the game, concordia finished 44.6% (33-74) from the field, hitting 52.6% (20-38) in the second half after shooting just 36.1% (13-36) in the opening 20 minutes.

concordia was able to hang on to the win despite msum converting 17-21 (81.0%) of their free throws in the second half while concordia made just 5-10 (50.5). For the game, the dragons converted free throws at a 78.6% (22-28) while concordia was just 50.0% (11-22).

msu moorhead struggled just as much as concordia from behind the arc, hitting just 15.4% (2-13) while cu finished at 15.8% (3-19).

lund (right) was the only other bear to reach double-figures with 13 points. She also had six rebounds and four assists.

the dragons had four players reach double-figures led by a double-double from fesenmaier who had 17 points and 12 rebounds. Walden and lindsey anderson each contributed 15 points while allison swenson put in 11.

the win for concordia puts them in a three-way tie for first place with the dragons and northern state with 8-2 records in league play. Nsu is in action tomorrow as they host upper iowa.

concordia returns to action next feb. 2-3 when they host minnesota, crookston and bemidji state at 6:00.