MANKATO, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (3-7, 0-6 NSIC) was unable to pick-up its first Northern Sun win on Saturday evening, falling 67-58 at #16 Minnesota State (11-2, 5-1 NSIC) at Taylor Center.

The Golden Bears' shooting woes continued, coming into the game ranked last in the league with the only sub 40.0% team field goal percentage. Tonight was a similar story as Concordia shot 36.1% (22-61) as a team.

The game remained within reach throughout, as the Mavericks never led by more than 11. Concordia turned a 10-point deficit (42-32) with 11:02 to play into a five point margin three times over the next six and a half minutes. On two of those five point margins, Concordia had possessions with a chance to cut further into the gap.

The Mavericks pushed the lead back up to 10 again, 57-47 with 4:22 to play when Gage Wooten knocked down a three-pointer as he finished with a game-high 23 points on 8-10 shooting including four three-pointers.

Concordia got it back down to five again with two minutes to play when junior Travon Mitchell hit a pair of free throws for two of his 17 points off the bench. Mitchell hit three three-pointers while seeing 27 minutes of play.

MSU pulled away late, getting the margin back to its highest at 11 points, 66-55 with 35 seconds to play.

Junior Terez VanPelt matched Mitchell's 17 points to lead Concordia. The duo combined to hit 13-26 from the floor while the rest of the squad combined to shoot just 9-35.

Fellow junior Keith Crockett added six assists to just one turnover while adding five points and three rebounds.

The Golden Bears won the battle on the glass (42-39) and once again proved to be one of the better offensive rebounding teams in the league with 13 while limiting the Mavericks to nine second chances.

The result was seven extra field goal attempts for Concordia as the two teams each made 22 shots on the night, and each dropped in seven three-pointers.

The extra shot attempts helped while the Concordia defense stifled MSU to just 40.7% shooting despite entering the game with one of the top offenses in the league averaging 87.5 points on 50.6% shooting.

But free throw shooting once again made a key difference. Neither team shot a high percentage, but finishing under 60.0% for the game with Concordia's 58.3% edging MSU's 55.2%.

Only one first half free throw attempt was costly for Concordia, though, as MSU went on to shoot 17 more free throw attempts leading to a nine point scoring advantage in the game - which would also be the final margin of victory.

In the first meeting between the teams, Assem Marei and Connor O'Brien wreaked havoc inside for MSU combining to shoot 19-24 from the floor for 42 points and 15 rebounds. Marei alone was 11-12 from the floor for 25 points and nine rebounds.

Tonight, Concordia's interior defense shut down the pair of MSU bigs, as Marei was just 2-9 shooting for six points while O'Brien was 4-8 for 11 points. They combined for just 17 points on 6-17 shooting but they also paired up for 20 rebounds led by Marei's 12 while O'Brien added five of the pair's six blocks. Marei was also just 2-10 at the foul stripe.

Concordia returns home after the New Year to face Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State on Jan. 3-4