st. Paul, minn. - st. Cloud state university (18-8, 13-6) survived with a key nsic victory over concordia university, st. Paul (12-14, 10-9 nsic) as spencer bartz buried a buzzer beater in a crowded lane with 0.9 seconds left in a scsu 69-67 victory on wednesday evening at the gangelhoff center. Craig coenen led all players with 21 points and 14 rebounds while concordia was paced by three players in double-figures with junior sammy ricks scoring 14 points with six assists, five steals and just one turnover. box score

scsu took a two point lead late when taylor witt buried a three-pointer to give scsu a 67-65 lead. Concordia junior mike cunningham took the inbounds with 12 seconds left and drove all the way to the other end for a game-tying lay-in with six seconds to play.

st. Cloud state put the ball in the hands of bartz, a key reserve for the huskies and he was able to penetrate all the way to the lane and get a clear shot off in traffic to bury the golden bears.

concordia junior craig heiman had 16 points and eight rebounds for cu and hit 3-4 from three-point range and 5-6 at the line. Cunningham finished with 17 points and was 5-5 at the stripe. He had three steals but turned the ball over seven times in the game.

witt finished with 13 points, seven assists and five rebounds while turning the ball over six times. Bartz finished with 12 off the bench for scsu.

concordia, who rarely loses when shooting more free throws than their opponent, not only reached the line more often than scsu, but converted at a higher rate as well. Cu shot 79.2% (19-24) while scsu shot 68.4% (13-19).

cu falls to 9-4 when outshooting their foe at the line.

the game was tight throughout with 12 ties and 12 lead changes with st. Cloud state holding the largest lead of the night early on with a 10 point edge nearly eight minutes into play.

but concordia evened things out and neither team led by more than four points for the last 25 minutes of action.

concordia held a late four point lead, 63-59 after a thomas bassett layup with 2:39 remaining but the huskies countered with five unanswered over the next two minutes. The game was tied on three separate occasions in the last 48 seconds of play until bartz put the final stamp on the contest.

concordia closes out their season this saturday when they host upper iowa on senior night summer fun night at the gangelhoff center at 8:00 p.m.

they have locked up an nsic tournament berth and will await their opponent and location. Log on to www.cugoldenbears.com for more information.