Concordia claimed its third MIAC regular season title in the past four seasons by beating St. Thomas 3-2 in St. Paul on Tuesday.

Team	1st Half	2nd Half	Final
	1	2	3
	0	2	2

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (10/27/09)-- No.7-ranked Concordia claimed its third MIAC regular season championship in the past four seasons by beating St. Thomas 3-2 in St. Paul on Tuesday. The Cobbers got goals from Sue Obermiller, Megan Rice and Sam Johnson to secure the title and claim home field advantage throughout the MIAC playoffs which begin next Tuesday. CC will be making its seventh straight conference tournament appearance which is tops among any team in the league.

The win is the Cobbers' 15 overall of the season and ninth in league play. Concordia is now 15-0-1 in all games and 9-0-1 in the conference. The 15 overall wins is one shy of tying the school's all-time single season mark of 16 set back in 2007. The nine league wins is also one shy of the record of 10 posted back in the 2004 campaign. In the past four seasons CC has compiled an overall conference mark of 32-5-6 which is the best of any team in the MIAC.

Concordia had the run of play in the early going and threatened to get on the board early. CC had a pair of corner kicks in the first two minutes but was unable to convert. The scoreless tie lasted exactly 9:36 before Sue Obermiller converted a goal off of a free kick. Nikole Koehn took the dead ball and Obermiller knocked home her fifth goal of the season.

Neither team was able to get on the board for the remainder of the half and Concordia held tight to the 1-0 lead heading into the second period.

The Cobbers extended the lead to 2-0 in the 61st minute when Megan Johnson finished off a pass from Abby Habein at 60:13 for her third goal of the year. Normally that would have given Concordia enough of a lead since the Cobbers had not let up more than one goal in any game this year. However, the Tommies made Concordia tighten up by getting their first goal of the game at 66:10. Erin Spranger, last year's MIAC MVP, scored the first of her two goals in the game to push the score to 2-1.

Concordia then responded by getting their third goal of the game from this year's leading MIAC MVP candidate Sam Johnson just six minutes later. Johnson notched her league-leading 19th goal of the year at 66:10 to give CC a seemingly insurmountable lead at 3-1. For Johnson it was also her 10th league tally of the year. Rice and Habein were credited with the assists on the play. Habein earned her second assist of the game and league-leading 13th of the season.

St. Thomas then pushed multiple players into attack to try and narrow the gap. Playing with as many as five players on the front line at one time, their tactic paid off when Spranger made a nifty turn in the box and buried her second goal of the game at 86:00.

The final four minutes of the game were played at a frantic pace with the Tommies trying to sustain pressure in the Concordia zone and the Cobbers content to simply knock the ball out of their defensive end. UST was not able to come up with a shot in the final four minutes of play as the CC defense helped slam the door shut on a Tommie comeback attempt and polish off another MIAC regular season championship trophy.

For the game Concordia outshot St. Thomas 17-11 in total shots and 8-7 in shots on goal. The Cobbers also held a 5-4 edge in corner kicks. CC goalie Ali Nelson made four saves in the game to earn her 14th league-leading win of the season. Allie Byron stopped four shots for the Tommies and had her season record fall to 5-4-1.

Concordia will finish off the regular season when they host St. Ben's on Saturday, Oct. 31 at 1 p.m.