The Dominican University women’s basketball team closed out the 2010-2011 campaign on Thursday night with an 81-64 loss to the Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons in the semifinal round of the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) Tournament. The Stars led by as many as ten in the first half but found themselves trailing 30-29 at the break.

The Falcons continued to push the Stars in the second half, shooting 65-percent from the field (21-for-32) in the final 20 minutes.

Dominican, the NAC’s top offense at 74.1 points per game and conference’s leading three-point shooting team at 37.9 percent, struggled to get going at times, shooting 27-for-61 on the night, but more importantly connecting on just one of ten attempts from behind the three-point arc.

Juniors Sarah Budz (Orland Park, Ill.) and Kayla Blom (Circle Pines, Minn.) led the Stars in scoring with 17 points and 16 points respectively. The pair combined to score 27 second half points as Dominican was outscored in the second half 51-35.

Becky Christofferson (Summit, S.D.), the Stars’ leading scorer on the season at 17 points per game, chipped in 15 points, 13 in the first half, while Danielle Miller (Centralia, Ill.) pulled down a team-high 11 rebounds in the losing effort.

Five players scored in double-figures for the Falcons, led by Kendall Kerns’ 19 points. The Falcons’ 6’0 forward also pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds.

The Stars finish the season with a 20-7 overall mark, claiming the regular season NAC South Division title with a 14-3 record in conference play. The 20 wins marks the first time the Stars have reached the 20-win plateau since joining the NCAA Division III ranks for the 2000-2001 season.