#6 concordia-st. Paul (15-2) rebounded from their loss last saturday in a big way on tuesday evening in sioux falls, s.d., defeating #11 augustana college (13-5) in three games (30-23, 30-27, 32-30) on their home floor in a non-conference match between the regional rivals.

the golden bears cruised to a first game victory but the vikings played concordia to a tight second game before csp took control to take a 2-0 lead.

but in the third game, augustana continued to ascend, pulling out to a 13-4 lead. But the bears rallied and kate bennett's kill cut the score to 15-11 to cap a 7-2 run.

but the vikings persisted until a maria steinhagen kill brought the game even closer to three points at 18-15.

bennett and steinhagen each recorded ten kills for concordia.

but augie fought off concordia once more, pushing the lead back to six, 24-18.

that's where the golden bears turned their game up a notch, scoring nine of the next ten points sparked by a run of three consecutive kills by emily palkert. Palkert finished with 13 kills and hit a team-high .276.

the strong spurt gave concordia a 27-25 lead. Augustana would force the bears to take it to three game points before csp finally closed out the vikings.

maggie mcnamara had another fine performance, distributing out 52 assists in the three game match (17.3 per game). She set four teammates to double-digit kill performances and recorded another double-double with ten digs.

whitney meierotto was the greatest benefactor of mcnamara's setting, drilling 14 kills and reaching another double-double with 12 digs.

defensively, mary slinger led four bears in double-digits with 24 digs (8.0 per game). Joining slinger, meierotto and mcnamara in double-figures was rachel knutson with ten. krista erickson nearly reached double-digits with eight digs.

as a team, the bears had 20 more digs than the vikings with 76 and held augie to a .105 hitting pct. Cayla schroeder was the lone viking in double-digit kills with 16. She had a double-double with ten digs. Jenna lago recorded a team-best 18 digs.

concordia returns to nsic action this weekend when they travel to take on u-mary and northern state on friday and saturday.

box score - csp 3, augustana 0