st. Paul, minn. - with a convincing 71-50 win over upper iowa (5-22, 1-19 nsic) on saturday evening, the golden bear women's basketball team (19-11, 11-9 nsic) makes their seventh consecutive postseason, heading into the upcoming nsic tournament as the #8 seed. Concordia will meet #1 minnesota state in the quarterfinals on wednesday evening in mankato. box score 2009 nsic sandford health tournament bracket

concordia went into the game knowing that all they had to do was claim a win over the team lowest in the nsic standings, upper iowa, in order to advance to the postseason. With a university of mary loss earlier in the afternoon, the future of the golden bears rested in their own hands. Determined not to miss out on their chance to continue the season, the golden bears took control of the game from the tip.

the meeting started with a 10-1 concordia run with back-to-back three-pointers from candace olstad and zoraa quoie, the night's scoring leaders. A shandrell duncan jumper put the team up 24-9 at the midpoint before the golden bears claimed a 39-23 halftime lead. Quoie pumped in 17 first half points, shooting 6-of-9 from the field with a trio of long range hits.

the peacocks steadied the score for much of the second half, trailing by about 14 points until the final four minutes, when the golden bears went off for 11 of the final 13 points scored. The golden bears took ten points from the bench in the second half, all of which came from forward gillian bjerke. Concordia maintained their lead by out-rebounding the peacocks in the period.

senior candace olstad was a top performer in the final game that she played at the gangelhoff center. She matched quoie with a team high 17 points and was also knotted up with bjerke and jamie jones for the team lead with seven rebounds. Jones had 13 points and three steals to go with her seven boards, which matches her career high figure for the fifth time.

the golden bears shot 38.2% from the field and connected on nine three-pointers. They had a 42-41 lead on the glass and committed only eight turnovers in the game.

the peacocks were paced by lyndsay westgaard with 15 points and six rebounds. Lana otting added 13 points and four assists. Upper iowa shot 33.3% from the field. They struggled with turnovers, giving the ball up 12 times in the first half and 19 times in the game.