ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Golden Bear women's basketball team (5-1, 1-0 NSIC) finished out non-conference play with a 71-62 victory over Michigan Tech (4-3, 0-0 GLIAC) in their home opener at the Gangelhoff Center.
Trailing 36-22 in the second quarter, CSP went on a 14-2 run to finish out the first half trailing 38-36. The Golden Bears started the second half on a 6-2 run to extend the run to 20-4 and take their first lead of the game.
"We thought in the first half we looked a little sluggish; we weren't really talking and we gave up a lot of threes," said head coach Amanda Johnson. "How we started that second half was huge. When we get stops we can score a lot easier, it makes our offense flow a lot more."
The teams would continue to trade blows in the third quarter until redshirt freshman forward Lauren Wilson hit a 3-pointer to give CSP a 55-51 lead with 45 seconds left in the third. Wilson's 3-pointer sparked a 9-2 run the Golden Bears would continue early into the fourth quarter.
The Huskies cut the lead to 65-62 with 1:47 left, but senior guard Ally Gietzel got an offensive rebound off her own miss and drew a foul. This was the start of six straight free throws for Gietzel and she made all six to end the game.
Sophomore guard Leah Dengerud and Gietzel both tied for the team-high 15 points. Dengerud led the team in assists with four and in steals with three. She never turned the ball over in the game. Dengerud scored six points off of two 3-pointers in the first quarter. The Golden Bears trailed 19-13 after the opening 10 minutes.
"We gave Leah the game ball. She came out and hit a couple of threes," Johnson said. "She was a game-changer for us. I think Leah was our most consistent and solid player all around. We're proud of her and we talked about it early on that we wanted her to come out with a big game and she definitely did."
Gietzel finished with a team-high +13 on court differential in a team-high 37:12 played. She shot 9-10 from the charity stripe and finished with three assists.
Wilson tallied 13 points, three rebounds, and two assists off the bench. She shot 5-7 from the field. Junior center Lindsey Becher scored 12 points for the Golden Bears with three blocks.
Junior forward Megan Gamble finished with seven points and six total rebounds. Junior guard Mikayla Kanenwisher finished with a team-high seven rebounds.
The Golden Bears crashed the paint hard outrebounding the Huskies 41-30 and 16-7 on the offensive glass. The offensive rebounds led CSP to outscore Michigan Tech 12-5 in second-chance points.
"In the second half we were just more aggressive and I think that's what we needed to do," Johnson said. "They're coming off playing Minnesota Duluth, St. Cloud State, so we wanted to use that to our advantage to get in there and out-hustle them. I thought the girls did a really good job at that."
Shooting was fairly even in the game as CSP shot 26-66 from the field compared to Michigan Tech's 25-57. The Huskies made two more threes than the Golden Bears shooting 8-22 from behind the arc compared to CSP's 6-16. CSP went 13-16 from the free throw line and Michigan Tech went 4-4.
Concordia outscored Michigan Tech 18-13 off of turnovers and 36-30 in the paint. CSP's bench held a 20-10 advantage over Michigan Tech's. Michigan Tech's biggest lead was 14 points with 3:11 left in the second quarter, whereas CSP's biggest lead was the nine-point finish. There were only three lead changes in the game and the teams were tied twice.
Michigan Tech was led by guard Isabella Lenz with 15 points and seven assists. Katelyn Meister finished with 14 points and Sara Dax finished with 12 points.
The Golden Bears will now prep for NSIC play at home in the Gangelhoff Center this weekend against Augustana (1-2, 1-0 NSIC) and Wayne State (3-1, 0-1 NSIC). Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday against the Vikings and 4 p.m. on Sunday against the Wildcats.
