st. Paul, minn. - it happened twice in one night on the hardwood - the navy and yellow vikings in division ii athletics belong to the city of sioux falls, s.d. And the number four was wearing navy blue and vegas gold, the color of the concordia university golden bears - the only ncaa dii basketball team in the twin cities. He is brent barz, a sophomore post from johnston, iowa and he was on his game tonight. Barz made all eight of his field goal attempts, scored 22 points, pulled down nine rebounds and rejected five viking shots to lead concordia to an 82-79 win over 17th-ranked augustana college at gangelhoff center on friday night. Concordia's win improves them to 9-10 on the season and evens them at 6-6 in the nsic while the vikings fall to 16-3 overall, 9-3 in league play. box score
earlier in the evening, the cu women's team faced an augustana team they were tied with for the league's top spot in the standings, and it was a number four that led them to victory over the vikings as zoraa quoie was outstanding in the opener of the nsic doubleheader.
when the men's game tipped, barz went to work as concordia led 9-0 in the first two and a half minutes. They would also start the second half on an 11-0 run over a three and a half minute stretch. Barz had two points and three rebounds in the strong first half start while adding six points, a block and a board in the second half run.
those two quick starts helped fight off a viking team that was ranked fourth in the ncaa central region rankings and provided the golden bears with their first win against an nsic team higher in the standings.
it was a closely contested game throughout with concordia never leading by more than their early 15-5 edge. With four ties and six lead changes in the contest, there were just two ties and one swap of leads in the second period as cu had the upper hand down the stretch.
but leading 76-67 with just over four and a half to play, augustana scored the next nine points over a 2:13 stretch to knot the game up. A golden bear turnover gave augustana a chance to reclaim the lead for just the second time in the second half and the first time since their 45-43 lead early in the period.
concordia came through with a big defensive stop as senior craig heiman (marshall, wis.) picked david foster with 1:54 remaining and 30 seconds later, junior courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) drove to the hoop with the shot clock winding down to hit a tough runner in the lane to put the home team up a pair with 1:25 to go. Heiman showed excellent poise early with assists on two of cu's first three possessions of the game with a layup in between. He added his third assist early in the second half.
another defensive stand forced an errant foster three-pointer with junior andrew kuderer (eden prairie, minn.) grabbing the board. Kuderer had a big night, and the rebound was one of many great moments for the guard. He finished with a career-high 18 points, knocking down a season-high four three-pointers while shooting 6-12 from the floor.
kuderer was fouled 30 seconds later and converted both free throw attempts, his only two ft's of the night in a clutch 1-and-1 situation.
on the defensive end, concordia came through again with a four point lead, again forcing a foster miss with 21 seconds to play and senior mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) grabbing the board. Cunningham had a solid night with the ball, dishing six assists to one turnover with five rebounds.
it then took 16 seconds of excellent concordia passing and movement for the vikings to commit a foul and tyler delivered two more free throws, where he went 4-4 on the evening, to put concordia up six with 5.3 seconds on the clock. Tyler finished with six points and three assists while playing 20 key minutes off the bench.
augustana took nearly a full five seconds to get down the court as jordan dalton finally delivered the three-pointer they had been seeking, but it was too little, too late as cu successfully inbound the ball with 0.4 seconds to play to let the clock reach zero.
although foster struggled down the stretch for augustana, he had a solid performance overall with four three-pointers (eight attempts) and 12 points in 18 minutes as he was riddled with foul trouble.
the vikings did the most damage off their bench with 24 points from cameron mccaffrey. He also drilled four three-pointers (six attempts) and was 8-12 from the floor.
but the inability of leading scorer cody schilling to get going offensively hurt augustana the most. Schilling was bottled up to 4-10 shooting from the floor, missed his only three and wound up with 10 points. He committed five turnovers with just two assists and two rebounds and was eerily absent from making an impact for much of the evening.
for concordia, everyone who played was able to score and although barz and kuderer racked up nearly half of the team's points, they received solid contributions at key moments throughout.
they won the rebound margin, 34-30, committed only nine turnovers to augie's 11 and got to the free throw line often, hitting 16-22.
concordia improves to 9-3 on the year when allowing under 80 points, 6-3 when attempting more free throws and 6-0 when winning the turnover battle.
they also picked up their second win when trailing at half (2-7) and third win when being out shot from the three-point arc (3-7).
the golden bears snap a three game skid against the vikings and improve to 4-5 in the all-time series.
a win, combined with a wayne state loss at st. Cloud state, puts them in a three-way tie with the wildcats and idle upper iowa at 6-6 for sixth place in the league standings, two games behind u-mary (8-4) and idle winona state. The golden bears host the wildcats tomorrow in a sixth-place showdown while the peacocks host winona in a game that has implications for the golden bears.
