wayne, neb. - a career high 27 points from concordia junior sammy ricks helped to fend of a spectacular shooting performance by wayne state college on saturday evening. The golden bears also had a good shooting night as they claimed the 81-74 win, their seventh win in the last eight meetings with wayne state.

concordia shot 54.7% from the field (29-53) to hang tight in the nsic standings at 7-6 in the league, improving to 9-11 overall. The wildcats shot a season high 64.4% (29-45) to keep the game close, but eventually fell to 8-12 on the year and 4-9 in the nsic.

concordia used three-point shooting to take the edge over the wildcats, nailing nine in the game, with four coming from ricks. With the teams playing similarly in nearly all statistical categories, the game went into the halftime break with concordia leading 35-33.

after dropping in 13 points in the first half, ricks opened the second period with his fourth triple of the game to put concordia up 38-33. The wildcats played behind the phenominal shooting of jonathon thomas, who hit 6-of-7 second half field goals for 16 points. His team shot 77.3% in the second half (17-22), while the golden bears shot 61.5% (16-26).

the difference in the game came from long range, as concordia sunk five three pointers from four different players in the last 20 minutes. And although they couldn't cool the red hot shooting of the wildcats, the golden bears forced ten second half turnovers.

a three-point shot by concordia's matt cadwell gave the golden bears their largest lead of the game, 49-40 just five minutes into the second half. The wildcats scored 14 of the next 18 points to regain the lead near the midpoint of the period, but concordia refused to give in to wayne state. They hit two more threes and then got three field goals from ricks to go back up by eight points, 71-63 at the 4:48 mark.

the wildcats made one more run, but concordia hit 8-of-8 free throws to seal the game, 81-74.

ricks was 10-of-13 from the field, including 4-of-5 from three-point range, on his way to 27 points. He also had five assists, as did mike cunningham. Cunningham was the team's second-leading scorer with 19 points. He led the squad with seven rebounds. Concordia shot 54.7% throughout the game and had 20 rebounds.

the wildcats dropped their fourth straight game with the loss. Thomas was 9-of-12 from the field with 22 points. Brian metz was a perfect 5-of-5 from the field for 14 points and completed a double double with a team high 11 rebounds. Wayne state led on the boards with 26 rebounds. They committed 20 turnovers.

all photos courtesy of www.photo-resource.com