Daniel Jansen scored a season-high 21 points to go along with a season-high eight rebounds to lift Augustana to an 87-75 road victory over Concordia University, St. Paul on Friday night. The Vikings (13-4, 9-4 NSIC) had five players score in double-digits for the second straight game in the win. Concordia-St. Paul (3-14, 1-12 NSIC) was led by a career-high 28 points by Cole Olstad.
Cameron McCaffrey added 14 points and six assists for Augustana while Yuriy Malashenko matched his career-high with 13 points. Malashenko finished the game 5 of 7 from the field, including 2 of 4 from 3-point range. Jamall Taylor added a season-high 12 points for the Vikings while Alex Richter contributed 10 points.
The Golden Bears got most of its scoring from two players as Terez VanPelt finished with 21 points for the CU.
Augustana finished the game shooting a season-high 52.5 percent (32 of 61) from the field, including 8 of 18 from 3-point range.
The Vikings dominated the glass in the game, finishing with 40 rebounds to just 28 for the Golden Bears. Four Vikings finished with five or more rebounds in the contest, led by Jansen’s eight. Augustana scored 44 points in the paint and 15 second-chance points taking it to the Golden Bears down low.
Augustana and Concordia-St. Paul battled back-and-forth in the first half with neither team jumping out to a big lead. The first half saw six tie scores and eight lead changes alone.
Augustana trailed by one at 31-30 with 5:09 remaining in the first half but the Vikings reeled off a 12-0 run to take a 10-point 41-31 lead with 2:04 left in the half. Concordia-St. Paul would score the only basket in the final two minutes of the half as Augustana held a 41-33 halftime lead.
Augustana shot 54.8 percent from the field in the first half, including 4 of 9 (44.4 percent) from 3-point range. Jansen led the Vikings with 11 points in the half while Olstad had 14 first-half points for the Golden Bears.
Concordia-St. Paul came out firing in the second half, cutting Augustana’s lead to four at 48-44 with 15:22 to go in the game. Taylor answered with a jumper for the Vikings and Shea Mandli followed with a fastbreak bucket to make the score 48-44 in favor of the Vikings.
From there the Vikings went on a 15-2 run to make the score 61-46 with 9:30 remaining in the game. Augustana led by as much as 17 points in the final nine minutes of the half as the Vikings went on to take the 87-75 road win.
Augustana will close-out the short two-game road trip tomorrow night, taking on seventh-ranked Minnesota State University at 6 p.m. at the Taylor Center in Mankato, Minn.
