ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia Golden Bears men's basketball team (6-16, 4-12 NSIC) finished off the weekend sweep as they held off the University of Mary (10-10, 6-10 NSIC) in a 67-62 win at Gangelhoff Center on Saturday afternoon.
 
The Golden Bears came out firing in the game's opening 20 minutes, leading by as many as 18, before seeing the Marauders battle back after the break. UMary managed to close the gap to three midway through the second half and again in the final two minutes, but Concordia held strong to secure the victory.
 
CSP made it back-to-back wins on their home court for the first time since grabbing a 79-65 win over UMary and a 71-68 win over Minot State back on Jan. 3-4, 2020. The Golden Bears continued their dominance in the series in recent years against the Marauders as they won their fourth in the last five meetings and 10^th in the last 13 to move to 16-9 overall.
 
The Golden Bears gave themselves extra possessions to aid their effort on the afternoon as they committed just seven turnovers while holding a 44-39 rebounding edge, including a 16-10 advantage on the offensive glass, in the win. CSP turned that into a 13-5 edge in points off turnovers as well as an 11-8 edge in second chance points. Concordia also added an 18-6 advantage in bench scoring while they connected on 10-12 from the free throw line (83.3%) compared to 6-13 (46.2%) for UMary.
 
Concordia's three leading scorers all reached double figures in the contest as Antwan Kimmons led with 16 points while Marcus Skeete had 14 and Jacob Everson added 11. All three filled the box score in other areas as well with Kimmons picking up his fourth double-double of the season with 10 boards, four steals and three assists. Skeete chipped in eight rebounds while Everson had four rebounds and a pair of assists.
 
Roy Grigsby led the bench unit with six points and four rebounds while Emad Elniel followed with five points and two boards. Sean Mathieu added five points, three rebounds and two assists as well. All 10 Golden Bears scored in the game.
 
Treyton Mattern scored 14 of his game-high 20 points in the second half to lead the Marauders while Zyon Smith added 13 points.
 
After UMary scored the first two points of the night, CSP exploded for the next 12 in a row and 17 of the next 19 to balloon their lead all the way out to 13 at the 13:07 mark. The lead reached 16 a few minutes later at 28-12 with 6:51 left in the half before eventually growing to 18 with 2:16 to go at 37-19. Concordia remained comfortably in front at 39-24 heading to the break.
 
With the lead still at 15 at 47-32 with 17:33 left on the clock, the Marauders made it a two possession game with an 11-2 run to make it 49-43 two and a half minutes later. Baskets proved to be hard to come by from there with CSP hitting 1-14 while UMary hit 2-10 over an extended scoring drought. A 6-0 Marauder run during that stretch closed the gap even furth to 52-49 with 8:49 left on the clock, but five made free throws from Kimmons and two more from Skeete pushed it back to double figures at 59-49. Another 6-0 run for UMary had it back down to three at 62-59 with 1:33 to go, but a Kimmons 5-0 run the other way put it out of reach. A Mattern three before the horn brought it to the final margin of 67-62.
 
Concordia will look to continue their winning ways at home next weekend with Sioux Falls and Southwest Minnesota State coming to town.