ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (2-1, 0-1 NSIC) led by as many as 14 points but dropped its first Northern Sun conference contest of the year 84-74 to visiting Minnesota State (3-0, 1-0 NSIC) on Tuesday evening at Gangelhoff Center.

The Golden Bears head south for Thanksgiving break and will play a pair of nationally prominent opponents at The Furnace on the campus of Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, starting with a matchup with the NAIA's #5 team in the country, host Southeastern on Friday afternoon followed by a neutral site matchup with the University of Sciences, a Division II squad in Philadelphia receiving votes in the latest WBCA Division II Top-25 on Saturday afternoon.

Tonight, the Golden Bears led by as many as 14 points late in the second quarter as freshman guard Sarah Kuma picked up a steal and went the distance for the lay-in and a 50-36 lead with just under a minute and a half to play. She had a big first half with 11 points on 4-5 shooting off the bench and played big minutes in the second half, finishing with a double-double on 13 points and 10 rebounds.

It was a 50 point first half for Concordia, thanks to spread out scoring with eight players notching points with Kuma and Meaghan DuBois each with 11 while the team shot 16-of-19 (.842) at the foul line with seven players reaching the stripe.

While the Mavericks closed the half on a 5-0 run for a 50-41 halftime margin and opened the third quarter by closing the lead to six, 52-46 in the first minute of play, Concordia continued to maintain the upper hand as DuBois connected for a three-pointer and Kuma found Riley Wheatcraft for a layup to push it back to 12.

DuBois finished the night with a team-high 15 points to lead four players in double-figures, going 3-for-3 from the arc, adding five rebounds, five assists and four steals while playing all 40 minutes.

Early in the third quarter, the Golden Bear depth took a hit as the team's leading scorer through the first two games, Jadyn Hanson (15.0 ppg) left with an injury and didn't return. While she had seven points in the first half, it was her defense on MSU leading scorer Joey Batt that kept MSU off balance and played into CSP building the lead.

Batt ended up scoring 32 points on the night, 20 coming in the second half and also drew eight fouls with Concordia finishing the contest with all five players on the floor with four fouls each. She was 10-16 from the field overall, 4-5 from three and 8-11 at the foul line.

After Wheatcraft's layup put Concordia back ahead 63-51 with 3:35 to play in the third, the Mavericks chipped away at the double-digit lead, using a 24-5 spurt over nearly nine minutes of play (8:49) to turn the tables with a 75-68 lead with under five minutes to play.

While the Golden Bears responded with four straight points to get it back to a one possession game with plenty of time (3:43) left, the Mavericks countered with a 7-0 run starting with five straight points from Batt to put the game out of reach with just over a minute to go.

Joining DuBois and Kuma with double-digit point scoring nights was Lindsey Becher with 10 points and five blocked shots while Sydney Schultz had a strong 13 minutes off the bench, scoring 10 points with eight rebounds. Sydney Zgutowicz had nine rebounds including six on the offensive glass as Concordia out-rebouneded MSU 51-46 including 16-12 on the offensive side.

The Mavericks turned 20 Concordia turnovers into 31 points and held the Golden Bears to 33.3 percent (24-72) shooting including 23.7 percent (9-38) in the second half.

Concordia's defense held an MSU squad that entered play shooting 40.3 percent from the arc and making 12.5 three-pointers per game to just 7-of-17 from three-point range, limiting their top two perimeter threats, Taylor Theusch and Destinee Bursch, to 1-of-3 from long range. The duo entered having hit 15-of-24 (.625).