Feb. 26, 2000

Northern State took its first-ever visit Saturday night to a place it hopes to revisit soon. The Wolves pumped Concordia-St. Paul 81-62 to end their regular season with a 25-4 overall record, but perhaps even more importantly had a chance to play on the court that will serve as the central venue for the semifinal and final rounds for the 2000 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament March 3-4.

If NSU, which is the second seed in the conference tourney, can get by seventh-seed Moorhead State in Aberdeen this Tuesday (6 p.m., Barnett Center), they will revisit C-SP with hopes of winning the conference tournament and earning an automatic bid into the North Central Region playoffs.

Concordia, which along with fellow conference newcomer Minnesota-Crookston, is not eligible for this season's conference championship. The Golden Bears got a taste of Division II power Saturday night, as NSU  featured a balanced attack with five players scoring in double figures. Leading the way was sophomore post Shanna Dahl (St. Cloud, Minn.), who posted her first career double-double with 13 points and a career-high 13 rebounds. Senior All-American candidate Jammie Coyle (Belle Fourche) led NSU with 15 points to go with five steals and five rebounds. Junior forward Memory Johannsen (Tolstoy), freshman forward Shana Theobold (Brookings), and junior post Jennifer Murphy (Aberdeen) scored 10 apiece for NSU. Johannsen ripped down six rebounds. Lisa Harfield led C-SP with 22 points and 11 rebounds.

NSU (25-4 overall, 15-3 NSIC) opened a 36-21 halftime lead but would watch the Golden Bears (6-21, 4-14) whittle the lead down to 10 points before going on a 12-2 run midway through the second half to put the game away.