OCU NAIA Champs

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) _ Willie Irick scored 17 points to help Oklahoma City overcome an early Concordia lead and cruise to a 79-71 victory in the NAIA championship game. <br/><br/>It's the fifth small-college

Wednesday, March 21st 2007, 8:14 am

By: News On 6

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) _ Willie Irick scored 17 points to help Oklahoma City overcome an early Concordia lead and cruise to a 79-71 victory in the NAIA championship game.

It's the fifth small-college championship since 1991 for the Stars (35-2), who were beaten on a last-second 3-pointer in last year's title game but came back with 10 new players.

Concordia, the 2003 NAIA champ, may have still been recovering from an exhausting 124-119 quadruple-overtime victory over top-seeded Robert Morris Monday night. It was the highest-scoring and second-longest game in the tournament's 70-year history.

The Eagles hit six of their first seven 3-pointers and took an early 8-point lead over the 2nd seed on Terrence Worthy's long-range shot Tuesday night. But then they missed their next 18 from beyond the arc and finished 6-25.

The closest Concordia got in the second half was 49-47 when Josh Kremer hit a bucket with 14:04 to go.

Irick then connected and Nick Covington followed with a 3-pointer as OCU pulled away.

Levi Luster had 23 for the Eagles.