photo courtesy justin oakman photography

concordia-st. Paul (19-6, 12-4 nsic) fell behind early and was unable to overcome a 20 point deficit in the first half as they dropped an 87-68 decision to defending national champion and top-ranked winona state (25-0, 16-0 nsic) in front of a standing room only crowd of 3,669 at the gangelhoff center.

senior guard kyle marxhausen (rosemount, minn.) led concordia with 25 points and eight rebounds while freshman forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.) drained four three-pointers in the second half as the golden bears pulled to within eight points, 62-54 with 6:55 but the warriors proved to much as they picked up their 47th consecutive victory.

photo courtesy justin oakman photography

the bears led early, 8-4 with 15:11 remaining in the opening half, but the warriors responded with a 15-1 run to take an 18-9 lead with 11:05 to play in the half. They later extended the lead to 37-17 with 3:52 to play in the half but the golden bears closed out the first half strong with an 8-2 run in the last four minutes, capped off by five unanswered points in the last 49 seconds by senior point guard joey peel (dover plains, n.y.). The peel scoring spurt closed the gap to 39-25 at the intermission.

in the second half, the teams jostled back and forth with the lead for the warriors holding between 14 and 18 points for the first six and a half minutes until a three-pointer by heiman cut the gap to 13, 49-36 at the 13:30 mark.

trailing 52-36 with 12:30 to play, concordia rallied for a 14-6 run over a 4:02 span to cut the score to 58-50 with heiman hitting three more three?s and senior guard cortez forte (chicago, ill.) adding a fourth.

but the strong play of winona state center john smith came through down the stretch. Smith finished with 25 points, seven rebounds and five blocked shots and was 10-12 from the field and even drained a three-pointer. Wsu point guard zach malvik added 24 points and eight assists on 9-15 shooting in 37 minutes.

heiman ended up with 14 points after a scoreless first half. He was 5-9 from the floor and 4-6 from three-point range and added three rebounds. Peel finished with 10 points, five assists and three steals for concordia.

concordia was outshot by thirteen percent, but hit at a 50.0% (18-36) clip in the second half after just 31.3% (10-32) in the first 20 minutes. The bears were outscored at the free throw line 20-5 and had 20 less attempts than the warriors.

with the win, the warriors clinch the nsic regular season championship outright with two games to play. Should wsu win their first round tournament game, they will also host the semifinals and finals of the nsic tournament.

the golden bears are tied for second with sw minnesota state at 12-4 in the conference. The two teams square off next saturday night , feb. 24, in marshall, minn. After concordia takes on wayne state next friday, feb. 23. Both game times are at 8:00 and are the final two games of the regular season.

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