st. Paul, minn. - a great shooting game put the newly energized concordia women's basketball team one step closer to life in the postseason. Shooting 46.3% from the field, the golden bears dominated st. Cloud state 81-58 and improve to 18-11 overall and 10-9 in the league. box score

the golden bears play their regular season finale on saturday against upper iowa. Remaining knotted up with the university of mary at eighth place, the team will need a win over the peacocks and a u-mary loss (vs. #1 minnesota state) to jump ahead in the standings and continue play in the postseason.

concordia's strength was never in doubt in this rare wednesday game. jame jones canned one of the team's seven three-point shots at the midpoint of the first half to put concordia up 18-13. With st. Cloud state shooting well below their season average in the game, the golden bears lengthened their first half advantage to as many as 12 points, 39-27, with a kali olstad triple with 1:28 remaining.

first half reboundshelped concordia spell the difference in the first half, leading 22-15 on the glass and putting in 14 second chance points. The determining factor of the second half was continued struggles from the huskies to hit their shots. Scsu, coming in second this season in the nsic with a 45.6% shooting mark, shot a mere 28.6% in the second half.

the game was put far out of reach shortly after the start of the second half. Olstad continued to rain in three-point shots, hitting her third just a minute into the period to put the golden bears up 45-31. Concordia stretched the lead to 23 points with a procession of buckets in the paint, taking a shandrell duncan layup to set the score at 68-45. The largest lead of the game was reached with 1:50 to play as concordia finished a 13-5 run to lead 81-54.

kali olstad matched a career high 20 points on the night, hitting four three-pointers while also grabbing seven boards and taking three steals. candace olstad marked a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds, leading the way on the glass for the golden bears. Jones was 5-of-8 from the field on her way to 15 points. She also had six assists on the night. The team shot 46.3% from the field and out-rebounded the huskies 44-37.

danielle ellison topped the st. Cloud state scoring list with 15 points, followed by katie tacheny and krystal scott with ten points each. The huskies saw little action down low on the night, finishing with only 16 points in the paint, while concordia doubled that mark with 32. Rachel booth was the leading rebounder for the huskies, pulling down ten boards. The team's 32.3% shooting average was their second lowest performance this season.