SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The Concordia University-St. Paul women's basketball team (9-6, 6-4 NSIC) faced #14 Sioux Falls (14-2, 7-2 NSIC) on Saturday afternoon at the Stewart Center. The Golden Bears fell to the Cougars with a final score of 74-68.
 
It was a tough first quarter for both teams, as neither team shot better than 25% from the field. The Bears were finding their way to the basket and creating ample shot opportunities as they attempted 14 shots in the first ten minutes, but CSP couldn't find the traction they needed and trailed 15-7 going into the second.
 
The scoreboard lit up for Concordia in the second quarter after Danielle Schaub hit a pair of three's and Sydney Schultz grabbed a couple of offensive boards to earn points off the put backs. There were eight offensive boards in the first half, but only six points off second chances for the Bears which caused a significant scoring deficit going into the second half.
 
Jadyn Hanson added three points for CSP in the last second, fighting her way past two Sioux Falls players to get up a tricky three-pointer. The score sat at 42-27 as the teams entered the locker room for half time.
 
The Golden Bears dominated the second half and outscored Sioux Falls 41-32 to bring the game back within five points. Riley Wheatcraft and Sydney Zgutowicz were a solid duo in the second half to score a total of 26 points between the two.
 
Wheatcraft was the scoring leader for the Bears with 14 points along with five rebounds, three assists, three blocks, and a steal. The junior shot 40% (2-5) from the three-point line and 38.5% (5-13) from the field. Zgutowicz scored a career high of 12 points after shooting 55.6% (5-9) from the field. The red-shirt freshman was a strong force on the court and grabbed six rebounds for CSP.  
 
Schaub also ended the night with 12 points and six rebounds and was efficient from beyond the arc for 80% (4-5) shooting. Schultz put up 11 points and led the squad in rebounding with seven, including two on the offensive end. The sophomore finished 5-7 layups to shoot 71.4% from the field.
 
Sioux Falls was led by Kaely Hummel with 19 points along with nine rebounds. The guard had two assists and one steal and went 100% (10-10) from the free-throw line. As a team, USF had a 34.8% (23-66) field goal percentage and a 26.7% (4-15) three-point percentage. They had nine turnovers and collected seven steals from the Bears.
 
Concordia used the second half to improve their field goal percentage, ending the night with 39.1% (25-64) shooting from the field. CSP was also the better shooters from the arc, going 7-18 (38.9%) from the three. The Golden Bears were tough for the Cougars to get around in the paint, putting up a total of six blocks in the game with half of them coming from Wheatcraft.
 
Next week will bring another set of games on the road for the women's team as they travel to St. Cloud State on January 17^th and the University of Minnesota-Duluth on January 18^th. The squad will face the Huskies on Friday night at 5:30 p.m. and the Bulldogs on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. A livestream of the game will be available to watch at cspbears.com/watch.