The Dominican University women’s basketball team clinched the 2010-2011 Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) South Division title on Thursday night, topping the Concordia University Chicago Cougars 78-67 in the Battle of Division Street. The win improves the Stars to 18-4 overall and 13-2 in the NAC with two regular season contests remaining.

Becky Christofferson (Summit, S.D.) poured in a team-high 20 points on 6-for-11 shooting, going 3-for-5 from three, to lift the Stars past their neighborhood rival.

Trailing by three, 21-18, with just over seven minutes to play in the first half, freshman Ashley Oliver (Bolingbrook, Ill.) scored seven straight points to give Dominican a 25-21 advantage and the Stars never trailed the rest of the way, building up a 36-30 lead at the half.

The Cougars whittled the Stars’ lead down to two in the opening moments of the second half, but the Stars answered as Sarah Budz (Orland Park, Ill.) answered a 7-2 run with a three-point play to extend the Dominican lead to 45-36 with 17:18 to play.

The Cougars, refusing to give in, battled back, eventually knotting the score at 47-all as Marche Smith scored two of her game-high 31 points.

After the teams traded baskets, Kayla Blom (Circle Pines, Minn.) nailed an open three from the corner to give Dominican a 52-49 lead they would not relinquish.

Freshman Magdalena Kaminska (Orland Park, Ill.) chipped in 18 points and five rebounds in making just her third start of the season for head coach Michael Lane’s Stars. Oliver added 15 points of her own to round out a trio of Stars in double-figures scoring.

The win capped a worst-to-first turnaround for Dominican, who finished the 2009-2010 season in the cellar of the NAC South, going 4-14 in conference play and 9-16 overall. The Stars are guaranteed no worse than a two-seed in the NAC Women’s Basketball Tournament, scheduled to take place February 22-26, with the winner of the tournament claiming the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Tournament.