st. Paul, minn. - concordia university (6-10, 4-5 nsic) dropped their sixth consecutive game on saturday evening as southwest minnesota state (13-5, 6-3 nsic) won their sixth in their last seven outings in a pivotal conference matchup at the gangelhoff center. box score

concordia and smsu played close early, with cu holding a 12-11 lead after junior mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) buried a jumper at 10:20. That was the last time concordia would score for nearly eight full minutes of play as smsu went on a 13-0 run to build a 12 point advantage.

the run was stopped by sophomore matt hackl (seymour, wis.) who drained a three-pointer and would be the only concordia player to score for the remainder of the half, pouring in eight points down the stretch to keep cu within 10 points, 30-20 at the break.

hackl aside, concordia's scoring drought continued in the second half as the mustangs opened the final frame with a 20-0 spurt in the first five and a half minutes to take a commanding 50-20 lead. The run in all was 22-0 going back to the last bucket of the first half and took up over eight minutes of clock.

outside of hackl's eight point run late in the first half, the rest of the team went without scoring from the 10:20 mark of the first half after cunningham's jumper until junior craig heiman (marshall, wis.) knocked down a three-pointer at the 14:28 mark of the second half.

heiman would get hot in the second half and scored 17 of his game-high 22 points during a 12 minute stretch of play until he left the floor for the final two minutes. He hit five second half three-pointers and six for the game and finished with a team-high nine rebounds.

hackl finished with 11 points, hitting 4-12 from the floor including a pair of three-pointers. Cunningham also scored 11.

the mustangs were led by taylor huseby's 16 points and five rebounds while ross demasi had 14 points and nine boards. Smsu shot just 32.4% in the first half but shot a blazing 63.3% in the second half. The mustangs were nearly perfect at the line as well, hitting 17 of 19. They also had 19 assists to just eight turnovers in a well played game.

concordia hit nine three-pointers as a team at a 36.0% rate and shot an impressive 54.8% from the field in the second half.

smsu's rebounding edge, 40-25, led to a 16-7 lead in second chance scoring while they also held a 20-8 mark in points off turnovers and a 32-13 edge off the bench. Scott roehl scored a season-high 12 points off the bench for the mustangs.

the golden bears will attempt to snap their six game slide with a pair of home games next weekend. The schedule doesn't get any lighter with 11th-ranked northern state coming to the gangelhoff center next friday night before the university of mary on saturday.