ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (12-15, 9-12 NSIC) picked up its fourth consecutive win with an 82-75 victory over Southwest Minnesota State (13-13, 9-12 NSIC) on Friday night at Gangelhoff Center. The Golden Bears carry their longest streak of the year into senior night tomorrow against Sioux Falls (16-11, 11-10 NSIC) at 6 p.m. in the regular season finale.
The Golden Bears are 9-4 in their last 13 games and are winners of six of their last seven down the stretch. Concordia has also captured wins in six of its last seven home contests.
Concordia is now tied with SMSU for sixth in the NSIC South Division, an important distinction for NSIC Sanford Health Basketball Tournament seeding. The Golden Bears are also just a game behind fifth place Upper Iowa (10-11) with the Peacocks playing at Wayne State (3-18) tomorrow.
With one game remaining, the Golden Bears can still end up in the fifth, sixth or seventh position with a first round road trip to either U-Mary (12-9), Northern state (12-9) or Minnesota Duluth (11-10) all remaining possibilities as well.
Concordia was led by freshman
Bryndan Matthews with 23 points on 9-14 shooting including 5-6 at the foul line. He also had five rebounds and three steals. Senior
Shea Mandli contributed a 20-point performance with six rebounds, five assists (no turnovers) and a pair of steals. Mandli was 8-9 at the stripe.
Senior
Cole Olstad surpassed Jeff Chamberlain (1993-97) for third place on the all-time scoring list with 16 points on the night and 1,457 in his career. He added nine rebounds, six assists (one turnover) and three steals while dropping in three three-pointers.
The Golden Bears forced 16 Mustang turnovers and committed only eight, leading to a 21-7 scoring advantage off turnovers and 17-5 on the fastbreak. The Golden Bears also outscored SMSU 36-22 in the paint.
All five SMSU starters scored in double-figures as Mitch Weg, Joey Bartlett and Shaun Condon each scored 13 points but the trio combined to shoot 12-32 from the field with five turnovers.
The Golden Bears led for nearly the entire way with 35:12 of the 40 minutes in front of SMSU in a game that featured four ties and three lead changes.
But it was a slow start for the host as SMSU scored the first five points of the game. All three lead changes came in the first three and a half minutes of play when a Mandli layup put Concordia ahead as the Golden Bears wouldn't trail again the rest of the night.
Concordia opened things up seven and a half minutes into the game, using a 13-0 run to take a 24-11 lead in just three minutes of basketball as Olstad scored six and Matthews five during the spurt.
SMSU was able to bring it back down to three before the break before Concordia carried a 38-34 lead into halftime.
After Concordia scored on the opening possession of the second half, SMSU put together six straight points to knot the game at 40 just over two minutes into play. Concordia continued to hold off SMSU from reclaiming the advantage although the margin remained in single digits the rest of the way.
SMSU would also claim ties at 55-55 with 10:47 to play and 57-57 with 9:36 to play. The final tie of the night came late at 72-72 with 2:38 remaining when redshirt freshman
Matt Ambriz buried a key three-pointer.
The Mustangs would also have the ball trailing by a point with under a minute and a half to go, and had the ball trialing by three with under 40 seconds left missing a game-tying three-point attempt.
Concordia's defense came up big on numerous occasions to thwart the SMSU attempts to reclaim the lead as the Golden Bears held the Mustangs to 33.3 percent (10-30) shooting and 31.3 percent (5-16) three-point shooting in the second half.
The Golden Bears turned in a 43.8 percent (14-32) second half shooting effort and made 13-15 at the foul line on a night in which Concordia made 19-22 (86.4%) overall from the stripe.
