ST. PAUL, Minn. - For the second straight game, the Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (3-4, 0-3 NSIC) dropped a game in dramatic fashion in the closing seconds, falling 88-87 to Upper Iowa (3-6, 1-2 NSIC) on Saturday night at Gangelhoff Center.

Despite trailing by six points with 15 seconds to play, the Golden Bears rallied to cut it to a one possession game quickly. Terez VanPelt buried a three-pointer with 10 seconds to play for three of his game-high 28 points.

Senior Chris Halvorsen stole the inbounds pass and converted a quick layup to cut it to a one point game with six seconds to play. After UIU converted two free throws, VanPelt was forced off balance behind the arc and instead delivered a pass to Halvorsen for a quick layup with just over a second left to bring it back to a one point game.

The Golden Bears fouled the Peacocks with 0.5 seconds left, but Upper Iowa wisely missed at the line with Cordell Smith heaving a desperation toss at the buzz from full court that was off the mark.

Halvorsen finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three steals and his night included a highlight reel alley-up finish on the break (1:30 of the highlights).

VanPelt was 9-16 from the floor and 9-10 at the stripe, adding four assists to lead Concordia.

Smith had 14 points and six rebounds, knocking down three three-pointers.

Although the bench was light with a seven man rotation tonight, Travon Mitchell once again packed a big punch with 21 points and five rebounds in 31 minutes in reserve. He knocked down three three-pointers as well.

It was a close contest as the largest lead was an 8-point Concordia advantage, which they reached twice in the first half and once early in the second half.

Upper Iowa's largest lead was a 6-point advantage which didn't come unitl the second half with under eight minutes to play. They'd bump their lead to six points six separate times in the game's last eight minutes including four times in the last 2:15, three times in the last 1:17 and twice in the last 25 seconds.

Overall, the game featured five ties and eight lead changes.

Upper Iowa was led by Grant Lang's 22 points despite 6-15 shooting from the floor.

Each team finished 9-for-25 (.360) from three-point range while shooting nearly identical marks from the floor. Concordia was 30-64 (.469) to Upper Iowa's 29-64 (.453). The difference came in execution at the foul line, where UIU was 21-28 (.750) to Concordia's 18-29 (.621).

Concordia hits the road for the first time this conference season next Friday and Saturday at Augustana and Wayne State.