ST. CLOUD, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (3-10, 0-7 NSIC) chopped a 20-point deficit in half in the second half before host St. Cloud State (6-8, 3-5 NSIC) pulled away 96-71 on Sunday evening at Halenbeck Hall.

The Golden Bears return home to Gangelhoff Center next Friday night at 8 p.m. against #2 Augustana (11-1, 8-0 NSIC) and Saturday at 6 p.m. against Wayne State (3-10, 1-7 NSIC).

It was a game of spurts as Concordia took its only lead by scoring five straight points, a layup by Shea Mandli and a jumper and-one for the three-point play by Bryndan Matthews for a 5-4 lead just two and a half minutes into play.

Mandli made his first six shots of the game, finishing 6-7 for 13 points while Matthews led the Golden Bears with 15 points including three assists, three offensive rebounds (four total) and only one turnover in 31 minutes.

But the Huskies had the upper hand for scoring runs, using a 7-point burst for a 16-7 lead. While Concordia trimmed that back down to three with six straight points including an and-one conversion by Brandon McRoy, The Huskies would respond with a 13-1 run spanning just over two minutes to take a 13-point lead, 27-14 at the midway point of the first half.

The decisive run was started by a pair of free throws and a three-pointer by Gage Davis, who had a major hand in nearly every SCSU run of the game. He finished with 32 points on 10-17 shooting including 11-11 at the line, adding 12 rebounds, seven assists and two steals.

The lead remained in double-figures the rest of the game as St. Cloud State pushed it to 20 for the first time early in the second half (19:03) on a three-pointer by Scottie Stone.

From there, Concordia chipped away as a 7-0 run opened with Matthews finding Cole Olstad for a three-pointer and Mike Yahnke finished an and-one. A free throw by Matthews cut it 12, 63-51 with 13:04 left. Olstad had nine points, five rebounds and four assists while Yahnke added seven points and four rebounds.

At that point in the game, missed free throws had been costing the Golden Bears who were 12-21 compared to SCSU's 16-17 at that point. CSP would finish 56.0 percent (14-25) at the stripe compared to SCSU at 95.0 percent (19-20).

But Davis had other ideas, finding Andy Foley for an open jumper and adding a jumper and a layup to push it back to 17 (69-52) a minute and a half later.

The Bears continued to claw away at the Huskies lead as Mandli scored seven points in a span of just over a minute of play and Matt Ambriz used a highlight reel crossover pull-up jumper from the top of the key to make it a 10-point game, 71-61 with 9:25 to go.

Davis stepped up once again with a three-point play, but it was Stone who would bury the Golden Bears in the coming minutes.

Stone hit a pair of long three-pointers late in the shot clock, the first with 7:21 remaining to move it to a 16-point margin and the second about a minute later (6:19) to make it a 17-point game (82-65).

Davis finished the job with four straight points on the back-end of a 9-0 run that started with Stone's second long three-pointer and pushed the margin to 23 (90-67) with under four minutes left.

On the night, Stone knocked down five three-pointers and scored 22 points.

While free throw shooting was a thorn in the side of the Concordia comeback midway through the second half, three-point shooting also played a pivotal role in the loss. The Golden Bears were just 17.6 percent (3-17) from the arc while SCSU shot 34.6 percent (9-26) from long range. The Huskies also topped 50 percent from the floor (51.5, 34-66) while Concordia was 42.2 percent (27-64).

Concordia was solid in ball control with a 15-6 assist-turnover ratio, forcing 11 Huskies turnovers leading to a 20-4 scoring advantage off turnovers.