ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia-St. Paul women's basketball team (15-13), the sixth seed in the NSIC South, hits the road as they take on Minnesota Crookston (13-13), the third seed in the NSIC North, in the first round of the NSIC/Sanford Health Tournament.

THE MATCH-UP... Concordia has historically fared well against the Golden Eagles, winning 21 of the previous 27 meetings, but Minnesota Crookston was won the last two meetings. UMC slipped past the Golden Bears last season by a point before grabbing a 12 point win earlier this season with both wins coming in Crookston. The two teams have met twice before in the NSIC Tournament, splitting two meetings. Concordia picked up a 60-45 win in the opening round two seasons ago.

BACK ON JAN. 16... Concordia dropped a road contest at Lysaker Gym by a score of 73-61.

The Golden Bears struggled to get much going on the offensive end as they hit just 32.9% (24-73) from the field while the Golden Eagles hit 35.6% (21-59). UMC got a huge boost from the free throw line by going 24-28 (85.7%) compared to 6-8 (75.0%) for CU.

Ameshia Kearney led CU with 16 points on 6-12 shooting and 3-5 from beyond the arc to go along with five rebounds and four assists.

On a night in which scoring was hard to come by, Anika Whiting and Amanda Barton joined Kearney in double figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Whiting grabbed five boards and dished out three assists while Barton hit a pair of threes and chipped in three rebounds off the bench.

LAST TIME OUT... The Golden Bears closed out the regular season with a weekend split against SMSU and USF.

On Friday, Concordia picked up an 80-64 road win at Southwest Minnesota State.

The Golden Bears were led by Ameshia Kearney's 27 points which tied a career-high set just 10 days ago in Concordia's most recent road game at Minnesota State. It was her third 20-plus point game of the season and 22nd double-digit scoring game. She finished the night 6-13 from the floor, made a pair of three-pointers and was 13-14 at the foul line.

On Saturday, the Golden Bears' comeback attempt fell short in an 87-79 double overtime loss to Sioux Falls.

The Golden Bears erased a double-digit second half deficit, led by Anika Whiting's 21 points in the second half, but they couldn't get over the top to grab the win.
 
Whiting hit 11-26 from the floor and an efficient 11-12 from the free throw line overall as she anchored the Concordia lineup in her final regular season game in navy and gold. Her 33 points matched her career high scored against Wayne State back on Jan. 10th and marked her fourth career outing with 30-plus points.

RECORD HOLDERS... Earlier this season, Whiting surpassed Jennifer Pozzani as the all-time leading scorer at CU against UMD and surpassed Lisa Harfield as the leading rebounder in the DII-era against SCSU. Whiting now has 1,968 points and 854 rebounds in her career and her 727 field goals made and 469 free throws made rank first and second in program history, respectively.

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 224 shots in 95 career games, 77 starts, to give her 2.36 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 67 blocks, best in the NSIC and 15th in the nation, en route to an average of 2.39 per game.

NSIC TOURNAMENT HISTORY... Concora has a 23-7 record in 12 trips to the tournament. CU has taken home the title four times ('05, '07, '08, '14) and has reached the tournament final seven times. Concordia holds a 10-1 record in first round games in the tournament. Last season, the Golden Bears knocked off Minnesota Duluth 81-72 in the first round, Minot State 73-52 in the quarterfinals, Sioux Falls 78-66 in the semifinals and Northern State 54-36 in the championship en route to claiming an auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament.