NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Saturday afternoon, the Saint Mary's University women's basketball team saw victory slip right through their grasp, as Hamline scored the game-winning basket in the game's final four seconds as the Pipers escaped with a 57-56 victory.

Wednesday evening, it almost happened again.

Almost.

With the score tied, 54-54, St. Olaf's Laura Jorgensen put up a shot with one second remaining that would have given the Oles the win. The shot, however, missed its mark, and the game went to overtime.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the Oles didn't miss the mark much in overtime, outscoring SMU 12-7 in posting a 66-61 Minnesota intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory.

"It was kind of an up-and-down game for us," said SMU coach Shawn Stimmel, whose team has now dropped four straight in falling to 3-13 in the MIAC and 5-14 overall. "We did not play well at all in the first half – we gave up 18 offensive rebounds (in the first half) and were fortunate to only be down by eight. Then, in the second half, we came out and play much better, but just couldn't come up with the clutch baskets down the stretch and in overtime."

After trailing for most of the first half, and heading into the locker room down 31-23, SMU came out flying to open the second half, using a 26-10 run to take a 49-41 advantage with 9:46 remaining in regulation. The Oles, however, used a 9-1 run of their own to knot the game at 50-50, and got a game-tying basket by Kristina Stoermer with 51 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime.

"We just ran out of gas," said Stimmel, whose team made just 2 of 8 field-goal attempts in the five-minute overtime period. "We had our chances, we just weren't able to knock down the shots when we needed to."