River Forest, Ill. - The Dominican University men's basketball team suffered a pair of regular season losses at the hands of the Concordia University Chicago Cougars, but it is the Stars that get the last laugh in the rivalry season, knocking the Cougars out of the 2010 Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) Tournament on Thursday night with an 82-79 win at Concordia. The Stars become the first eight-seed to advance to the conference championship, where they will face the Aurora University Spartans on Saturday.

Dominican jumped out to a 16-7 lead on a three by junior Milos Mandic (Munster, Ind.) with 14:39 remaining in the first half. However, the Cougars roared back with a 29-9 run to take a 36-25 lead with under three minutes to play in the opening period. The Stars answered with a 13-4 run, featuring eight points from junior Jovan Turley (Grand Rapids, Mich.), to close out the half and pull to within two, 40-38, at the break.

The Cougars extended their lead to seven, 47-40, early in the second half, but a 9-0 run by the Stars capped by a Marquis Turley (Grand Rapids, Mich.) lay-in put Dominican ahead 49-47. Dominican went on to build three ten-point leads in the second half behind 19 second half points from Marquis Turley, but scored just three points in the final 3:30 to scratch out the three-point victory.

Marquis Turley paced the Stars offense with 23 points, going a perfect 10-for-10 from the foul line. Jovan Turley, Marquis's older brother, added 20 points on 5-of-11 shooting from the field in the winning effort while Mandic and Darrius Nelson (Michigan City, Ind.) chipped in 17 points and 16 points respectively to round out the Stars scoring leaders.

The win lifts the Stars to 11-16 on the season after opening the season with just two wins in their first 11 games. Dominican will now travel to Aurora on Saturday for a 2:00 p.m. tipoff in the Spartans' Thornton Gymnasium. Aurora, 17-10 on the season, advanced to the NAC Championship with an 87-80 win over the MSOE Raiders on Thursday night.