winona, minn. - 8th seeded concordia university (21-11) appears to be the sleeper team of the 2009 nsic/sanford health basketball tournament, first knocking off top-seeded minnesota state and now topping no. 4 augustana college (20-9) by a score of 67-58 in the semifinals. Jamie jones poured in 19 points to help concordia head coach paul fessler reach his 300th career win. The golden bears are matched up with no. 5 st. Cloud state in the nsic tournament championship game, which tips off at 2:00 pm on sunday afternoon. box score - updated bracket
the win gives the golden bears their fifth nsic tournament championship game appearance in the past six years. They have a chance to make their sixth straight ncaa tournament berth with a win over the huskies, which would give them the automatic bid for the central region tournament.
coach paul fessler is in his 13th year as a collegiate head coach and has put together a carer record of 300-95. He has been at the helm of the golden bear program for nine years and has 199 wins with cu.
for the second straight game in the playoffs, the golden bears utilized their swift three-point shooting to gain the edge over their opponent. kelly supernaw sunk the first of the team's ten three-pointers, followed in consecutive suit by jamie jones and zoraa quoie, which put the golden bears up 20-12 with 14:47 to play.
as the game tightened midway through the second period, jones took the matter of scoring into her own hands, hitting two ten foot jumpers before canning her third three-pointer. This put the momentum solidly back on concordia's side and put the team up 54-45. Defensive stops made it a 7-0 run. Quoie later put the team back into a double figure lead with a triple on an inbounds play, 57-47 at the 8:46 mark.
the vikings answered concordia's long range shots with buckets down low. Dani arens found comfort in jumpers near the charity stripe and finished the night with 12 points. Augustana managed to stay in the game by solidly out-rebounding the golden bears on nearly every trip down the floor. The finished the game with a 49-38 rebounding edge. Arens added 12 boards to her line to make it a double-double on the night.
senior candace olstad showed leadership in getting to her third straight nsic tournament championship game by putting up a ten point, ten rebound double-double. She put up six points and pulled down four rebounds to lead the golden bears in the first six minutes of the second period.
the vikings got to within a single bucket, 47-45, at the midpoint of the second period after a 9-2 run, putting in several layups and also getting to the free throw line. That was when jones went on her seven point scoring spree in 45 seconds of clock time to distance the golden bears.
in addition to jones' 19 points and olstad's ten, quoie added 14 points. The trio combined for nearly 50% shooting from the field. As a team, concordia shot 38.5%, but held the vikings to only 33.8% shooting. Cu was 10-of-25 from long range for 40%. They had just ten turnovers.
augustana really struggled from three point range, hitting just 1-of-13 for 7.7% beyond the arc. Amy puthoff had a team high 13 points.
