ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (7-5, 3-3 NSIC) never trailed in a 65-56 win over Minnesota Duluth (6-7, 3-4 NSIC) on Friday night at Gangelhoff Center. Senior guard Terez VanPelt scored a season-high 17 points including perfect 3-3 shooting from the arc to guide a balanced offensive effort.

UMD had the game's two highest scorers as Brett Ervin scored 17 of his 21 points in the first half while Brendon Pineda scored 20 points with eight rebounds.

But Concordia's bench outscored the Bulldogs 16-0 as nine different Golden Bears scored with five scoring at least eight points. VanPelt was one of four players to dish out three assists with Concordia producing 14 assists to five turnovers.

Concordia's defense held UMD to 39.6 percent (21-53) shooting for the night to snap a string of five straight games of teams shooting above 40 percent. The Golden Bears had started the year holding opponents to 40 percent or lower shooting the first seven games of the year.

Joining VanPelt in double-figures in the game was junior Cole Olstad with 11 as he added three assists and matched Mike Yahnke's team-high seven rebounds. Yahnke added eight points on 4-6 shooting as well. James Healy led Concordia's bench with half of its 16 points, scoring eight on 3-6 shooting including a pair of three-pointers as well as two steals.

Concordia never trailed in the game and led for 38:18 of the 40 minutes with only two ties with the second tie coming with 16:33 to play in the first half.

The Golden Bears led by as many as 13 in the first half before UMD closed with seven straight points in the final two minutes. They cut it to four early in the second half twice before Concordia pushed it back up to 13 on a VanPelt three-pointer with 12:45 left in the game. From there, UMD didn't come closer than six points the rest of the way.