moorhead, minn. - with four players in double figures for scoring, the golden bear women's basketball team (17-11, 9-9 nsic) trampled #21 msu moorhead (19-6, 12-6 nsic) 72-55 saturday evening at nemzek hall. The win, combined with losses by the university of mary and northern state, moves concordia into a tie (with u-mary) for eighth place in the nsic standings with two games left in the regular season. The golden bears have been vying for a position in the nsic tournament, winning four of their last five games. They host st. Cloud state on wednesday evening. box score
the golden bears doubled up a turnover-prone and poor shooting dragon squad in the first half, leading by as many as 17 points, 31-14, near the end of the period. Concordia put back offensive rebounds at timely moments and stole the momentum of the half by forcing a 24.0% msum first half shooting percentage.
one of the first noticeable momentum-stealing moments of the first half came around the 15 minute mark. The dragons' meghan rettke had just laid in msum's first field goal of the game, but the crowd was about to be silenced as moorhead turned the ball over three consecutive times and concordia's jamie jones and candace olstad knocked down back-to-back three-pointers that put cu up 13-4. The golden bears led 32-22 at the half.
concordia sealed the win with a 53.3% shooting second half. shandrell duncan paved the push with six field goals in the final 20 minutes. She started the second half off with back-to-back buckets, putting concordia up 36-22. zoraa quoie also had a strong second half, scoring eight points in a 15-6 run that put the game out of the dragons' reach by the five minute mark. The largest lead for the golden bears was a 24-point margin, reached twice in the final minutes.
quoie, olstad and duncan were the leading scorers on the night with 18, 15 and 14 points each, respectively. Duncan was the night's rebounding leader, nabbing eight boards to go with her career high scoring mark. Jones also pitched in with 11 points. The team shot 42.9% in the game and had just nine turnovers.
scoring for msu moorhead was anything but balanced, with 23 of the total 55 points coming from meghan rettke. Rettke dropped in 11 free throws and led all players with nine rebounds. The dragons shot 28.8% from the field, but came ahead on the rebounding front with 40 boards to cu's 36.
the golden bears continue their quest toward the nsic tournament this wednesday evening, hosting st. Cloud state. Currently tied in the nsic standings with the university of mary, a win over the huskies would put the golden bears in a great position to make the post-season. The marauders have minnesota, crookston and #3 minnesota state remaining on their schedule, while concordia wraps up the regular season next saturday, hosting upper iowa.
