Game Summary
ST. PAUL, Minn. — It has been nearly two months since the Saint Mary's University women's basketball team dropped a 64-47 decision to St. Catherine in the teams' Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener.
The memory of that night — in which the Cardinals managed just 17 second-half points — however, was still there when the two teams squared off Saturday.
It's tough to forget when that second-half nightmare has become a recurring theme for the Cardinals this season.
Six times since that loss to St. Catherine — including each of their last five games — the Cardinals have failed to score more than 22 points in the game's final 20 minutes.
The Cardinals were determined to break that trend on Saturday — and they did, scoring 25 second-half points. Problem was, the Wildcats netted 33, turning a 29-28 SMU halftime lead into a 61-54 St. Catherine victory.
"Despite the loss, I thought we played one of our better games of the season," said SMU coach Dan Messmann. "We've been struggling all season to put together a complete, 40-minute game, and this was probably the closest we've come. We handled the ball much better than we have been, we executed our offense and played pretty well on the defensive end.
"All in all, it was a solid effort."
SMU got out of the gates quickly, shooting 58 percent from the field in the first half (11-for-19), building leads as big as six, before settling for the one-point halftime edge.
Things didn't come quite as easily for the Cardinals in the second half. The Cardinals made just one fewer field goal than they had in the opening 20 minutes, but they attempted 15 more — and that 29 percent shooting allowed the Wildcats to building a commanding 10-point, 46-36 cushion with 10:47 remaining.
SMU did cut the gap to three on two separate occasions — the second at 57-54 with 46 seconds remaining in regulation — but four straight Wildcat free throws iced the win for St. Catherine.
"We got good looks (in the second half), we just couldn't knock down any shots," said Messmann. "It was a well-played game by both teams. We played well, (St. Catherine) just played a little better."
Ashley Luehmann (Lewiston, Minn.) netted a team-high 12 points for SMU, which had snapped a season-high five-game losing streak with its 56-46 win at St. Olaf on Wednesday, while Sarah Murphy (Belle Plaine, Minn.) and Jessica Weisbrod (Rollingstone, Minn.) chipped in 11 and 10 points, respectively.
