ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia-St. Paul women's basketball team (11-8, 7-6 NSIC) hits the road this weekend as they take on MSU Moorhead (10-8, 9-5 NSIC) and #17 Northern State (11-3, 17-3 NSIC) in a tough road series.

THE MATCH-UPS... Concordia takes on MSU Moorhead in the 35th matchup in the all-time series on Friday as they hold a 23-11 record against the Dragons. MSU Moorhead has been successful against CU recently as they have won two out of the last three meetings. Concordia, however, is 7-6 all-time in Moorhead.

Concordia meets Northern State for the 33rd time overall as the Wolves hold an 18-14 advantage in the previous 32 meetings. Concordia has flipped the momentum in the past few seasons as they have won two out of the last three.

LAST YEAR AT MSUM... Concordia-St. Paul came back from a 22 point deficit to take a 53-52 lead with just under nine minutes to play before MSU Moorhead held on to defeat Concordia 81-68 at Alex Nemzek Fieldhouse.

The Concordia comeback was sparked by Ameshia Kearney who scored a career-high 24 points including 6-9 three-point shooting. Anika Whiting was also effective with 19 points on 7-11 shooting but fouled out with 4:34 to play after playing just 18 minutes due to foul trouble.

The Kearney-Whiting tandem was excellent, combining to score 43 points on 15-29 shooting. The rest of the team made just 7-37 (.189) from the floor, though.

LAST YEAR VS NSU... After dropping the first meeting of the year 61-59 in Aberdeen, Concordia knocked off Northern State 54-36 to win the NSIC/Sanford Health Tournament and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
 
Suffocating defense was the story for the Golden Bears in the final as they held the Wolves to just 25.0% (14-56) from the floor while also forcing 14 turnovers. The 36 points scored by Northern State was by the far the season low for the top seed out of the North. NSU also went just 4-17 from beyond the arc and 4-10 from the free throw line.

LAST TIME OUT... Last weekend, the Golden Bears extended their winning streak to three with a sweep of Sioux Falls and Southwest Minnesota State.

Concordia saw a 16-point first half lead disappear against USF on Friday but bounced back for a 76-72 win.

On Saturday, CU jumped out to a 22-1 lead en route to an 82-46 blowout win over SMSU.

Anika Whiting led the team with 16.5 points on 54.2% shooting for the weekend. She added 6.0 boards, 3.0 assists, 2.0 blocks and 2.0 steals in the sweep. She is now averaging 20.5 points in her last six games.

RECORD HOLDERS... Earlier this month, Whiting surpassed Jennifer Pozzani as the all-time leading scorer at CU against UMD and surpassed Lisa Harfield as the all-time leading rebounder against SCSU. Whiting now has 1,787 points and 785 rebounds in her career and her 655 field goals made and 433 free throws made both rank second in program history.

After just two seasons at Concordia, Kionda Nicks entered this season as both the single-season and career leader in blocks as well as the single-season and career blocks per game record holder. Nicks has blocked a staggering 207 shots in 86 career games, 68 starts, to give her 2.4 blocks per game in her career. Nicks nearly doubled the single-season record last year when she blocked 104 shots for an average of 2.8 per game. This season, she has already collected 50 blocks, best in the NSIC and 12th in the nation, en route to an average of 2.6 per game.

ROAD TO THE POSTSEASON... The Golden Bears enter the weekend in the fifth spot in the NSIC South but just 1.5 games out of third place. CU will have a chance to gain some ground with five more games against NSIC opponents, including a matchup against the two teams just ahead of them (Winona State and Sioux Falls) left on the schedule.