SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A staple of Concordia-St. Paul women's basketball played out on Friday night at Stewart Center as the Golden Bears posted a strong 74-65 road win at Sioux Falls (13-9, 8-7 NSIC), moving a step closer to the NSIC South Division lead in a pivotal contest between the second and third ranked teams in the division.

Concordia improves to 14-6 overall and 10-6 in the Northern Sun, trailing NSIC South leader Minnesota State (15-5, 11-5 NSIC) by less than a game in the standings after the Mavericks fell tonight at Southwest Minnesota State. Concordia has won three in a row, while Sioux Falls has now dropped its last three games to fall 1.5 games behind CSP for second in the NSIC South. Tomorrow, USF and Minnesota State will square-off in Sioux Falls while CSP will head to Marshall, Minnesota to take on Southwest Minnesota State (10-9, 7-8 NSIC).

Concordia held the advantage throughout on Friday night, leading by as many as 18 points (37-19) in the second quarter in a game that featured only two ties and three lead changes with Sioux Falls' last lead being early in the game, 8-6 in the first four minutes of play.

With the early deficit, Concordia was able to take the early lead back in the first quarter, and with a 20-17 lead late in the first quarter, the Golden Bears took control with a 14-0 run in just three and a half minutes of play to wrestle control of the contest in their favor for a 34-17 advantage with 7:57 to play in the first half.

During the run, Lindsey Becher scored six of her eight first half points while Sarah Kuma added five from the bench as Concordia went 4-7 from the floor, 2-3 from the arc and 4-4 at the foul line in displaying the range of its scoring prowess. Defensively, CSP held USF to 0-6 shooting and a pair of turnovers to keep them scoreless. Thirty seconds later, Meghan DuBois buried a three-pointer after the run was snapped to push the margin to its largest lead, 37-19.

The Cougars pushed the lead back to single digits once in the second quarter before CSP held a 14-point halftime lead (43-29) and once in the third quarter before CSP pushed it back to an 11-point margin (61-50). In the fourth quarter, the Cougars inched closer, getting the CSP lead to six (67-61) with 5:46 to play and caused a turnover on the ensuing possession. But CSP's defense came up with a stop and although the Cougars came up with another stop on defense, an offensive rebound by Jadyn Hanson kept Concordia on the offensive end, allowing the Golden Bears to drain more clock off the scoreboard before Becher finished in the lane on a DuBois pass for an 8-point lead with 4:41 to go.
 
DuBois finished with a team-high 13 points, adding seven rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals while Becher had 12 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals.

They led a balanced offensive flow as Concordia had seven players score at least eight points and five reach double-figures. Sydney Zgutowicz had 11 points and narrowly missed another double-double with nine rebounds while Jadyn Hanson had 11 points on efficient 5-6 shooting and five assists.

Riley Wheatcraft rounded out the starting five by knocking down 3-8 from the arc for nine points, along with four rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals.

The bench was led by Kuma with 10 points on 4-6 shooting in a strong 21 minutes while Sydney Schultz had eight points on perfect 3-3 shooting from the floor in 10 minutes of play.

The Golden Bears assisted on 18 of their 26 made field goals throughout the game and shot 48.1 percent (26-54) as a team while holding a 40-34 rebounding margin.

CSP's defense held Sioux Falls to just 34.8 percent shooting (23-66) including 21.4 percent (3-14) from the arc. Krystal Carlson led the Cougars with 18 points, but was 7-20 from the floor with eight rebounds and seven steals.