MOORHEAD, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (6-14, 4-12 NSIC) saw MSU Moorhead (13-8, 9-6 NSIC) put together a big second half to claim an 85-72 win on Saturday night at Nemzek Hall.
The Golden Bears held a 36-34 lead at the break, but the Dragons put up 51 points after the break to pull away for the comfortable victory. The loss drops CSP to 13-21 all-time in the series with a mark of 4-14 in Moorhead.
While both teams connected on nearly identical percentages from the floor with CSP hitting 46.7% (28-60) and MSUM hitting 47.5% (29-61), free throw shooting and rebounding played a major role in the Dragons' success. MSU Moorhead hit 76.9% (20-26) from the line compared to 75.0% (6-8) for Concordia while also turning a 38-29 rebounding edge into a 13-3 edge in second chance points. The Dragons also claimed a 27-16 advantage in bench scoring as well as a 9-2 advantage in fast break points and a 36-30 advantage in points in the paint.
Concordia's offense ran through their big men as
Max Keefe and
Cody Carlson combined for 34 of the team's 72 points in the game. Keefe hit an efficient 6-10 from the floor and 2-3 from deep to finish with 17 points to go along with a pair of boards and a pair of assists while Carlson matched that scoring total with 17 points on 8-15 shooting as well as seven rebounds.
Joining the pair in double figures was
Perion Little. Little finished with 11 points on 4-9 shooting and 3-6 from three-point range with six rebounds and two blocks.
Noah Kannegiesser nearly reached that total in just 13 minutes off the bench as he hit 3-5 from beyond the arc to contribute nine points.
Lee Higgins added eight points, five assists, three boards and two steals.
Gavin Baumgartner paced the MSU Moorhead surge in the second half as he finished with a game-high 29 points on 10-18 shooting and 4-8 from three-point range while also collecting five rebounds, three assists and three steals in the win. Bryce Irsfeld added 14 points off the bench while Joe Sevlie chipped in 13 more.
After seeing the Dragons claim the first two points of the contest, CSP grabbed nine of the next 10 points to build a comfortable advantage. That lead proved to be short-lived, however, as MSU Moorhead responded with 11 points in a row to turn a 9-3 deficit into a 14-9 lead at the 13:38 mark of the half. The momentum quickly swung back in Concordia's favor as they took a 20-16 edge to the midpoint of the period with an 11-2 burst of their own.
Things evened out quite a bit the rest of the half as the Dragons regained the lead with a 5-0 run for the first lead change of four over a two and a half minute stretch. From there, the Golden Bears held a slim lead until the 2:58 mark at 33-28 before a 6-0 run over the next minute and a half put MSU Moorhead ahead late. Keefe put CSP back in front with a three-pointer with 33 seconds left to give Concordia a 36-34 advantage at the half.
Baumgartner started to take over early in the second half with eight of the first 13 points overall to turn a two-point deficit into a 44-39 lead with 17:22 to play. Concordia tied it back up with a 5-0 run before another run keyed by Baumgartner, this time a 6-0 run, gave the Dragons their largest lead of the contest to that point. The lead grew to eight at 56-48 at the 13:09 mark before three straight buckets had the Golden Bears within a pair with the ball. A CSP miss followed by an MSUM three and a Golden Bear three kept the lead at two at 59-57 before the Dragons further gained control.
A 7-0 run pushed the MSU Moorhead lead out to nine before another 11-3 stretch a few minutes later ballooned the lead to 13 at 77-64 at the under-five media timeout. The Dragon lead would not shrink back to single digits the rest of the way as they cruised to an 85-72 victory on Saturday night.
Concordia returns to St. Paul next weekend as they take on Bemidji State on Friday and Minnesota Crookston on Saturday.
