WINONA, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (1-10, 0-7 NSIC) saw Winona State (5-5, 3-4 NSIC) pull away in the second half as the Warriors took the first game of the weekend by a score of 76-62 on Friday night at McCown Gymnasium.
 
With the Golden Bears pulling to within four at 40-36 with 15:20 left on the clock, an 11-0 run in favor of WSC put the game out of reach as the hosts cruised to a comfortable victory. It was Winona State's 49^th win in 56 meetings between the two schools as they improved to 25-5 on their home court against CSP.
 
The Golden Bears matched a season high with 12 made threes while connecting at a season-best 48.0% clip. Concordia was unable to replicate that success inside the arc as they finished with just 14 points in the paint while shooting 10-31 (32.3%) inside the arc to finish at 39.3% (22-56) overall. It was the opposite story for the Warriors as Winona State hit 33.3% (8-24) from deep and 18-30 (60.0%) from inside the arc for a total of 48.1% (26-54) from the floor.
 
While the turnover margin was just four at 12-8 in favor of WSU, the Warriors were opportunistic with those opportunities as they had a 17-8 edge in points off of turnovers. Winona State also held a 28-15 edge in bench scoring and a 30-14 edge in points in the paint.
 
The trio of Jax Madson, Caden Hoffman and Carlos Barela all reached a dozen points as Madson led the way with 14 points on 5-9 shooting and 3-5 from deep. Hoffman added 12 points on 4-8 from three-point range while Barela finished with 12 points and seven boards.
 
Kevion Taylor once again played a starring role for the Warriors as he scored a game-best 23 points on 6-14 shooting and 9-9 from the line as he fell two boards short of a double-double with eight rebounds.
 
An early 7-0 run for WSU turned a 5-4 CSP lead into an 11-5 advantage for the Warriors. Still down 13-7 a few minutes later, Concordia responded with an 11-4 run of their own to regain the lead at 18-17. The momentum swung back the other way with a 14-3 run for Winona State before a late three for Keenan Jones cut it to 31-24 at the break.
 
Concordia got off to a fast start in the second half as they scored the first five points to close the gap to two before a 9-2 run extended it back to nine at 40-31 with 16:11 left. The Golden Bears answered with five in a row to cut it back to four, but that would be all the closer they would get as 11 straight for the Warriors turned the momentum in their favor for good. The WSU lead eventually reached 19 before a late push from CSP brought the final score to 76-62.
 
The Golden Bears close out their road slate tomorrow afternoon as they take on the Warriors at 2 p.m.