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ST. PAUL, Minn. - The #24 Concordia-St. Paul women's basketball team (21-5, 19-3 NSIC) closed out the regular season with a 76-47 win over Sioux Falls (12-14, 9-13) on Saturday evening. The win secures the program's fifth NSIC Regular Season Championship outright, along with sole possession of the NSIC South Division title and a number one seed in the NSIC/Sanford Health Basketball Tournament.

Concordia will play the eighth seed from the North Division Division, Minnesota, Crookston, on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Gangelhoff Center. The Golden Bears have home court advantage in the quarterfinals if they are able to advance past UMC. That game would be against the Northern State/Wayne State winner on Saturday night at 8 p.m. at Gangelhoff Center. The semifinals and tournament championship games are at Taylor Arena in Rochester, Minn. The winner of the 2013 NSIC Tournament receives the Northern Sun's automatic bid to the NCAA Central Region Tournament.

The Golden Bears opened tonight's game strong, scoring the game's first seven points and mounting a 17-2 lead over the first 7:45 of play. Junior Carissa Wolyniec (Minneapolis) hit three three-pointers during the stretch. She finished the night with six three-pointers (eight attempts) and scored 18 points.

Concordia never trailed and Sioux Falls wasn't able to get the margin into single digits the rest of the way. The closest they came was a 10-point deficit late in the first half, 29-19 with 5:19 to play.

The Golden Bears led by 18 at the break and would open the lead up to as many as 29, which would be the final margin.

While Wolyniec lit things up from the outside, sophomore Anika Whiting (Ashland, Wis.) had things going on the interior with 20 points and nine rebounds. Defensively on the inside, freshman Kionda Nicks (St. Paul, Minn.) had four blocked shots, with three of those coming in the opening minutes as USF started the game 1-5 from the floor thanks to Nicks' presence.

Junior point guard Rachel Hansen (Eagan, Minn.) had another solid all-around effort with 12 points, eight rebounds, six assists and two steals. Her back-up point guard, sophomore Kayla Hulsebus,Kayla Hulsebus (Eden Prairie, Minn.) had three steals and two assists off the bench as Concordia forced 22 Sioux Falls turnovers.

On senior night, Mandy Poke (Richfield, Minn.) - the team's lone senior, stood out in a solid reserve role with six points, eight rebounds and four assists in 24 minutes.

The Golden Bears dominated the paint to a 32-8 advantage as USF made half of its shots from behind the arc, but were just 8-of-29 from long range (.276). Concordia also had a rebounding advantage, 43-38 and a 5-2 team blocked shot margin.

Sioux Falls was led by Alyssa Rushton's 15 points and nine rebounds.

Concordia has reached the 20-plus win barrier for the 10th time in head coach Paul Fessler's 13 seasons, the first time since 2009-10 (26-6) which was also the program's last NSIC Championship season.