saint cloud, minn. - the golden bears (3-6, 2-3 nsic) fell to the st. Cloud state huskies (6-3, 3-2 nsic) by one point on saturday night 61-60. jineen williams led cu with 17 points but it was not enough to overcome st. Cloud state's second half comeback. Concordia led 28-21 at halftime but the huskies responded by shooting 52% in the second half and outscored cu 40-32. box score
cu jumped out to an early 12-5 lead thanks to five points by williams along the way. Scsu then went on a 11-3 run to take a 16-15 lead with 6:50 left in the half. Maurika hickman responded with three of her 15 points as cu took the lead right back at 18-16. Two free throws by jodi batzel extended the concordia lead to 20-16, batzel had a career high ten points on the night. With 2:54 left in the half cu was trailing 21-20 but the golden bears scored eight straight points to take a take a 28-21 lead at half. The run was keyed by both batzel and erica gress who combined for five of the eight points.
concordia stayed hot in the first part of the second half as they extended their lead to 11 at 34-23 with just over 16 minutes left. The golden bears held a ten point lead at 40-30 with 11:43 but the huskies then caught fire and went on a 10-0 run to tie the game at 40 with 9:44 left. Cu took a lead at 44-40 but scsu went on another run outscoring cu 15-5 to take a 55-49 lead with 2:33 left. St. Cloud led by as much as seven with 1:40 left as cu tried to climb back scoring seven of the next nine to pull within two at 59-57 with :16 seconds left. A foul by zoraa quoie put the huskies on the line with a chance to take a commanding four point lead. Sam price hit both free throws to put scsu up four with thirteen seconds left. Hickman hit a three pointer to pull within one with five seconds left but cu couldn't get a shot off at the end and fell 61-60.
cu forced 22 turnovers on saturday night but only shot 33.8% in the game as they couldn't overcome scsu hot second half. Concordia out rebounded the huskies 43-35 including a big 18-7 advantage on the offensive boards.
the golden bears will be back in action january 1 as they travel to #10 wayne state followed by a match up with #16 augustana the next day. Cu returns home to the gangelhoff center january 7 against winona state.
photo by trevor saylor
