saint paul, minn. - the golden bears (1-3) got into the win column on saturday afternoon defeating #14 michigan tech (3-1) 78-70. Cu used a 27-28 advantage from the free throw line and outscored the huskies 45-33 in the second half to earn the w. Maurika hickman had a season high 26 points in the win, with a perfect 11-11 from the free throw line. box score

concordia got a career high 12 points from mandy poke off the bench. Two other golden bears had double digits on saturday; jineen williams had 11 and rachel hansen had ten. Freshman jodi batzel had nine points which was a career high in her fourth game on the college level. Cu shot 62.5% from behind the arc, with hickman hitting all three of her attempts.

the golden bears and huskies played a tight first half as neither team led by more than four the whole time. The golden bears led by three on two separate occasions and the huskies led by four once with 7:49 left in the half. The golden bears trailed the huskies by one point with under a minute to play and it looked like the score would hold at 34-33 in favor of the huskies but a three pointer at the buzzer by angela guisfredi gave michigan tech a 37-33 lead at half.

the huskies out shot the golden bears 50.0% to 44.4% in the first half and made two more three pointers. Cu outscored michigan tech 18-10 in the first half to keep the game close. There were seven ties and six lead changes in the first half alone.

michigan tech hit a three pointer right out of the break and extended their lead to seven, their largest of the game thus far. The golden bears used a 6-0 run capped off by back to back free throws by hickman to pull within one. The huskies kept the lead as the two teams traded buckets back ad forth. With 10:00 min left in the game the huskies had extended their lead back to seven at 56-49. The huskies lead got up to as much as eight at the 8:33 mark ( 59-51) and the 7:37 mark (61-53). Concordia went on a 15-2 run capped off by two free throws by mandy poke. Newcomer batzel and poke combined for nine of the 15 points on the run.

cu kept up the pressure and extended the lead to as much as nine with :34 seconds left in the game. Cu went 9-10 from the foul line in the last 2:09 to seal the win; hickman was 6-6 herself. The golden bears hit the first 21 free throws they attempted in the game.

the golden bears kick off their nsic slate next weekend as they face northern state on friday, december 3 at 6:00 p.m. And u-mary saturday, december 4 at 6 p.m.

photos by trevor saylor