Game Summary
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team has seen its offense struggle in the second half this season.
Heading into their showdown with conference power St. Thomas on Saturday, the Cardinals had been outscored by 41 points in the game's final 20 minutes.
To make matters worse, the Cardinals were coming off back-to-back games in which they scored just 11 second-half points against St. Benedict and 22 vs. Hamline.
And things didn't get any better against the Tommies.
UST held the Cardinals to just seven points in the first 16:00 of the second half. The Tommies used a 19-7 run to turn a 27-23 halftime lead into a 16-point lead with 5:00 to play.
"I don't know what the problem is, we just can't seem to get out of the gates (in the second half)," said SMU coach Dan Messmann, whose team was outscored 24-16 in the second half in dropping its fourth straight. "i thought we played a pretty solid first half — just like we did against St. Ben's (trailing 24-23 at the break of a 63-33 loss) and Hamline (tied 27-27 of a 53-49 setback). We're just not getting that same performance in the second half.
"I felt a little better about the way we played today (compared to SMU's last two games), I thought we came closer to playing a 40-minute game," continued Messmann. "We got some good looks, we just weren't able to knock down our shots. And when we'd miss, (St. Thomas) would bring it down and hit the shot."
Ashley Luehmann (Lewiston, Minn.) scored a team-high 12 points for the Cardinals, who are 0-4 in 2006, having not won since a 74-56 nonconference win over Coe on Dec. 31, 2005. Jessica Weisbrod (Rollingstone, Minn.) chipped in 10 points in the losing effort for SMU, while Jessica Katch had 10 points, eight rebounds, six steals, six assists and two blocks for the Tommies.
"Everyone's doing a pretty good job of not getting too frustrated," said Messmann, whose team is back in action on Monday, taking on Carleton in an MIAC game at the SMU Gym. "I think we made some progress (against the Tommies), but we've still got a long way to go."
