duluth, minn. - the concordia men's basketball team shot 53.7% from the field and led the majority of the game against a strong minnesota duluth team on saturday evening. The bulldogs made a late push in the final minutes to overtake the golden bears by a slim 84-79 margin and improve to 13-5 overall and 7-1 in the nsic. Concordia is now 6-8 on the season and 4-3 in the league.
the golden bears took the lead early in the first period with players from around the roster chipping in. Back-to-back layups from mike cunningham gave concordia a 21-15 edge around the nine minute mark. Free throws from thomas bassett gave cu their largest lead of the half, 33-25 with 3:30 to play. After shooting 51.7% in the period, concordia threatened minnesota duluth with a 39-34 lead at the half.
while the golden bears played strong all game long, the bulldogs kept themselves in the game by also shooting well. They hit 50% of their shots in the first period and made light of cu's 56.0% second half shooting figure by dropping in 73.9% of their field goals in the final 20 minutes.
a string of seven points from three different cu players gave concordia their largest lead of the game at the 17:59 mark of the final half, 46-36. The remainder of the game was a shooting spree from both teams, with minnesota duluth taking the slight margin en route to the win. Umd had three players tally double figures in scoring in the second half.
the bulldogs tied the game for the first time at 50-50 with 12 minutes left to play. They outscored the golden bears 19-11 in the next five minutes to go up 69-61. craig heiman and teammates knotted the game back up at 73-73 as time wound down and the pressure heated up in romano gymnasium.
minnesota duluth only missed one field goal from that point on and picked up the defensive pressure to take the final advantage in the contest.
a handful of players ended up with the majority of the scoring for the golden bears. Cunningham hit 9-of-12 field goals and topped the scoring list with 19 points. He also matched a number of players with a team high five rebounds and dished three assists. Heiman was 7-of-13 from the field with 18 points, followed by matt hackl, who was 5-of-6 shooting and had 14 points. The golden bears picked up 28 rebounds to umd's 24.
john vaudreuil led the bulldogs with 18 points in the nsic win. He was followed by ron white and steve klass with 16 points each. White led all players with seven rebounds and also had six assists.
with a strong performance put behind them, the golden bears return to the gangelhoff center next weekend, hosting minnesota state and southwest minnesota state.
