st. Paul, minn. - concordia university improved to 2-0 on the season as they cruised past valley city state university (5-2) by a 19 point margin in a 79-60 win on tuesday evening in non-conference action at gangelhoff center. The golden bears swelled the lead to as much as 29 points midway through the second half before rolling up the near 20 point victory. Four players scored in double-figures led by seniors craig heiman (marshall, wis.) and mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) with 16 apiece. box score
the game was pretty tight throughtout much of the first half with concordia's 20-15 lead at 9:07 to play before a 7-0 run by the vikings over the next two and a half minutes gave vcsu their first lead. The lead jostled a few more times, with all four lead changes occurring before the intermission.
concordia closed out the half strong, though. Once trailing 24-23 with 5:18 on the clock, heiman buried a three-pointer at 4:45 on a pass from junior andrew kuderer (eden prairie, minn.). Two cunningham free throws extended cu's reclaimed lead to 28-24.
a free throw by vcsu set up sophomore post brent barz (johnston, iowa) to take over as he scored five unanswered points to extend the lead to eight, 33-25 with under two minutes in the half.
two more free throws by the vikings cut it back to six before senior guard sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) scored five more on his own with junior forward matt hackl (seymour, wis.) knocking down a jumper at the buzzer to give concordia a 13 point lead.
overall, cu ended the half on a 17-4 run over the final 5:18 to take control of the game.
in the second half, it was all concordia as the lead never dipped below double-digits.
heiman's 16 points give him 30 on the season and 1,354 in his career, putting him 89 shy of jeff chamberlain's school record 1,443. In two games he has moved into fourth on cu's career scoring list ahead of wayne coburn (1967-70) who had 1,336.
on the night he shot 5-11 from the floor and knocked down four three-pointers for the second consecutive contest. He also grabbed five rebounds and had three assists.
cunningham, meanwhile, was 5-10 from the floor and 6-7 at the stripe and tied the team-high with eight rebounds while dishing three assists.
barz also hit double-figures and narrowly missed a double-double with 12 points and eight rebounds shooting 4-6 from the field and the stripe and fellow post dan vandervieren (jr., eden prairie, minn.) also had 10 points with six rebounds in 14 minutes off the bench. Both towering posts had a blocked shot for cu.
vcsu had two individuals reach double-figures, mark klingberg with 13 points, four rebounds and three blocks and calvin kraft with 12 points connecting on 4-7 three-pointers. But klingberg, the viking post at 6-9 with considerable strength, was limited to 25 minutes primarily due to foul trouble while kraft was unable to hit anything inside the arc and no other viking was able to step up.
concordia was a steady 50.0% from the floor on the night while their defense held strong by limiting vcsu to 35.0% shooting. The golden bears also got to the line often, converting 15-19.
for the second straight game, concordia mopped up on the glass with a 46-29 margin.
another telling note, from a team that had four players clock at least 29.8 minutes per game last season, not a single golden bears has seen more than 29 minutes of action in either game with bench production being solid both games.
concordia will return to region-play this weekend when they travel to sioux falls, s.d. For the nsic holiday hoopsfest at elmen center and sioux falls arena. ticket information
