UMD Women's Basketball Upsets No. 2 Concordia-St. Paul, Reaches Elite Eight

Maria Counts buried the tying shot with 15 seconds left in regulation and finished with 25 points, including five three-pointers, as the University of Minnesota Duluth rallied from a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat No. 2-seeded Concordia-St. Paul 94-87 in double overtime Sunday evening, clinching the Central Region Championship and a berth in the NCAA Division II Elite Eight.

UMD had trailed by 12 points with under eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter before mounting the comeback. Counts' late tying shot forced overtime, and the Bulldogs ultimately outlasted the Golden Bears through two overtime periods to seal the victory.

The Central Region title is UMD's first since the 2023 season, when the Bulldogs advanced all the way to the national championship game. The win sends Duluth back to the Elite Eight and keeps alive what Northern News Now described as a Cinderella run through the NCAA Tournament.

Counts was the engine of the comeback, hitting five shots from beyond the arc on her way to a 25-point night. Her shot in the final seconds of regulation, converting what could have been a regulation loss into an overtime opportunity, proved to be the pivot point of the entire game.

Earlier in the tournament, UMD had already knocked off top-seeded Minnesota State, further cementing the program's standing as one of the more compelling stories in the Division II bracket this March.

The Bulldogs now advance to the Elite Eight, where they will look to build on the program's deep postseason history and push toward another run at a national title.