aberdeen, s.d. - the golden bear women's basketball team (15-2, 9-1 nsic), ranked #20 nationally, came away from their meeting with northern state (8-9, 4-6 nsic), a bitterly defensive squad, reaching over the 70-point mark for the 17th straight time this season in a 72-63 win. They took up a late-game push for the win, using eight points from gillian bjerke to stretch out a lead. Concordia will brave the elements and head to bismarck, n.d. For a 6:00 pm saturday game against the university of mary. box score

despite a hearty distance separating the teams in the nsic standings, northern state gave concordia a solid fight in front of 2,854 fans at wachs arena. The game's lead changed hands six times, five of which were in the second half. Concordia spread the ball and looked up to see a 14-point, 30-16 lead following a jamie jones (g, sr., mounds view, minn.) jumper at the 9:30 mark. But things would not go so easily for cu from that point, the team being outscored 19-3 from that point until halftime, which saw a 35-33 northern state lead.

krista rabenberg played to her 6-6 height in the first half, putting in 11 wolves points from 5-of-7 shooting and nabbing six boards. She also contributed three first half assists.

the golden bears found a way to quiet rabenberg in the second half, however, allowing her just four more points and two more boards. gillian bjerke (c, sr., detroit lakes, minn.), concordia's answer to nsu's post play, chipped in on defense and also had a big offensive second half, leading the team with eight points. Bjerke carried the team through the final three minutes, tabbing all of her second half points in the final stretch. She started the show with an offensive board on a cu three-point miss with the game tied up 62-62. Fouling the 6-3 presence did nothing to stop two go-ahead points from being tallied, as bjerke hit both penalty shots.

the golden bears made a stop on nsu's next possession, bjerke again grabbing the stray ball and finding herself at the stripe once again, where she did not fail. The team went up 68-63 around the 2:10 mark when chanica hall (g, sr., minneapolis, minn.) found bjerke for a layup, a lead that extended to seven points with another bjerke/hall hookup a minute later.

the defensive effort by the golden bears in the final minutes of the game was imperative. Concordia did not allow a single field goal for the last 3:37 of play, sacrificing just a single free throw in a 10-1 game-winning stretch. Their efforts brought down a normally cool-shooting northern squad from 42.9% first half shooting to just 32.4% in the second half.

but concordia's persistence in the final 20 minutes was not shown by bjerke alone. It was concordia's guards who put in the first 22 points of the period. jineen williams (g, jr., racine, wis.) and maurika hickman (g, jr., minneapolis, minn.) accounted for 13 points, while kali olstad (g, sr., elgin, minn.) stood out where she has most in her career, from the three-point line. Olstad's set of second half triples were daggers to the wolves, giving the golden bears the lead in both instances.

concordia finished near their season average from the field in the game, hitting 46.6%, but they shot ice cubes from long range, hitting just 6-of-16. Olstad accounted for four of the makes. 15 cu turnovers resulted in just 11 points for the wolves, but more importantly, the golden bears lost all of those chances to run up the score. It is impressive that cu has reached at least 70 points in every game this season, but tonight's 72 points scored was their second lowest mark of the year.

with her four-spot of three-pointers, olstad was tonight's scoring leader for concordia. She also took down seven boards. Hall shot 5-of-5 from the field for 11 points, while hickman and bjerke each had 10. Bjerke's eight rebounds was a team high.

the wolves also had four players finish in double figures for scoring, taking 15 each from rabenberg and mikayla barondeau. Rabenberg also had eight rebounds and five assists. Jodi reinschmidt had 10 points and led her squad with nine boards. Northern state shot 37.1% from the field. They hit only one three-pointer, but took just eight attempts.