MANKATO, Minn. - The No. 14 Concordia-St. Paul women's basketball team (11-1, 5-1 NSIC) fell 85-66 to No. 13 Minnesota State (10-2, 6-0 NSIC). After trailing by one point at halftime, CSP was outscored 23-9 in the third quarter and 42-24 in the second half to suffer their first loss of the season.
The Golden Bears turned the ball over a season-high 25 times and shot a season-low 32.4% from the field. Concordia also stole the ball a season-low six times.
Minnesota State started the second half outscoring CSP 10-4 in the first 4:20. After Lindsey Becher made a bucket to cut the lead to five points, MSU finished the third quarter on a 13-3 run. After trailing 66-51 at the end of the third quarter, the Golden Bears could not cut the lead to less than 14 points in the final quarter.
Junior guard Lydia Haack led the Golden Bears with 16 points, nine rebounds and four assists. She finished the game shooting 5-6 from the free throw line. She tied her season-high in field goal attempts shooting 18.
Becher finished with a double-double scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. This is the senior's fourth double-double of the season and the 12th of her career. Megan Gamble scored a season-high 10 points with eight rebounds. Six of Gamble's rebounds came off of the offensive glass.
Concordia started the game strong shooting 5-8 from the field with Becher scoring the first six points. This helped CSP gain an early 12-7 lead, which ended up being its largest of the game. Concordia then finished the quarter shooting 1-9 from the field to trail 18-17.
The Mavericks took an early five-point lead in a back-and-forth second quarter, but CSP used a 7-1 run to reclaim the lead by a point. Minnesota State eventually pushed its lead up to seven points, but the Golden Bears used an 8-2 run where they shot 4-5 from the field, ending the half trailing by a point. CSP finished 10-10 from the free-throw line in the first half.
It was also a very physical game featuring six jump balls and a total of 33 fouls between both teams. Concordia grabbed a season-high 24 offensive rebounds while Minnesota State grabbed 17 offensive rebounds.
Ashley Schuelke and Leah Dengerud each added seven points for the Golden Bears. Dengerud tallied a season-high four assists. Julia Bengtson scored six points shooting 2-3 from behind the arc and adding three assists. Lauren Wilson finished with five points and Emma Mommsen scored three points.
The Mavericks were led by Natalie Bremer with 23 points shooting 10-19 (52.6%) from the field. She also grabbed eight rebounds. Destinee Bursch scored 17 points shooting 8-11 (72.7%) from the field. Ava Stier scored 10 points with six rebounds and freshman Elisabeth Gadient finished with eight rebounds and eight assists while scoring four points.
Each team finished with 74 shots, but Minnesota State made 12 more than the Golden Bears to finish at 36-74 (48.6%). The Mavericks outscored CSP 25-9 on turnovers and 48-36 in the paint. The Golden Bears finished 18-46 (39.1%) in the paint compared to Minnesota State's 24-44 (54.5%).
The 11 wins to start the season finishes as the second-most in program history. The 11-game win streak ends tying for the sixth-longest in program history.
Concordia-St. Paul falls to third place in the NSIC standings behind Minnesota State and MSU Moorhead (6-4, 4-0 NSIC). The Golden Bears are the only one-loss team in conference play.
The Golden Bears return to the Gangelhoff Center on Saturday, Dec. 21 at 1 p.m. vs. Minnesota Duluth (4-7, 2-4 NSIC). The Bulldogs fell in overtime to Winona State (7-5, 3-3 NSIC) on Wednesday night, 67-65. The women's and men's basketball doubleheader is Concordia's last home event of the 2024 calendar year.
