saint paul, minn. - the golden bears (19-10, 16-6 nsic) fought for forty minutes on sunday afternoon in the gangelhoff center but came up just short falling to winona state (21-8, 14-8 nsic) 63-61. Concordia was led by their two senior guards jineen williams and maurika hickman who combined for 46 points on the day. Williams led all scorers with 29 including 13-13 from the foul line. box score | ncaa selection show

both williams and hickman were named to the nsic all-tournament team along with wayne state's ashley arlen and winona state's katie wolff and tournament mvp michelle mcdonald.

the golden bears and warriors both struggled shooting the ball on sunday as cu was just 19-58 in the game and wsu was 23-61. Both teams did however shoot well from the free throw line. Cu was 20-21 in the game and winona state was 12-14. The warriors were held without a free throw attempt in the first half as cu led 26-25 at halftime. It was just the fourth time all year that cu failed to hold a halftime lead.

with the win winona state will earn an automatic bid to the ncaa division ii national tournament in the central region. The golden bears who are currently fifth in the central region will find out their fate tonight at 8:30. You can watch the ncaa selection show live on ncaa.com by clicking on the link above.

concordia could not find the bucket as the game began, scoring just four points in the opening eight minutes of action. Trailing 12-4 with 14:09 left in the first half cu went on 7-0 run to cut the wsu lead to 12-11. Winona state quickly extended their lead to five again but a hickman three pointer followed by three free throws by hickman brought cu with in one at 18-17. Jodi batzel gave cu their first led of the game at the 6:26 mark. The two teams traded the one point lead back and forth until jineen williams hit a pair of free throws followed by one by rachel hansen and another williams layup. At the 2:19 mark of the first half cu led 26-20. The warriors got a three pointer and a lay up to pull within one at half.

mcdonald gave wsu the lead back with a layup :40 seconds into the second half. Williams scored four straight points to put cu on top again moments later. The golden bears battled to keep the lead for a majority of the next 10 minutes of action. The warriors never let cu get far away as the concordia lead never got bigger than six. Winona state took their third lead of the half at the 7:38 mark on a wolff three pointer. Wolff hit another jumper moments later to put wsu up by five with six minutes left in the game.

a quick 6-0 run by cu thanks to a hickman jumper and a hansen old fashioned three tied the game with 4:58 left. Mcdonald gave the warriors the lead back twenty seconds late, a lead they would never relinquish. Concordia cut the lead to one five times at the free throw line but couldn't get any closer. Winona state made 7-8 free throws down the stretch to hold on to the lead. Concordia had the ball down just two with 6.7 seconds left but a traveling call on hickman with 1.0 left secured the win.