vs.
62		79

Game Summary / GameDay Online

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A year ago, St. Catherine left little doubt in its two Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference games against hte Saint Mary's University women's basketball team.

The Wildcats' offense feasted on SMU a year ago, as St. Catherine handed the Cardinals a 71-56 home loss on Jan. 8, 2007, then followed that up with a 53-point second-half outburst en route to a 91-43 victory on Feb. 5, 2007.

And Wednesday evening, the Wildcats picked up right where they left off.

St. Catherine's Molly Peterson pulled down a rebound off her own missed shot and scored the game's first basket 30 seconds in — and the Wildcats never looked back, leading from start to finish en route to a 79-62 conference win over the Cardinals.

"We just didn't play like ourselves tonight," said SMU coach Mandy Pearson, whose team has now dropped two straight, after opening the 2008 portion of their season with back-to-back wins over Coe and St. Olaf. "You've got to give (St. Catherine) a lot of credit, they played very well, we just couldn't seem to match their intensity."

The Wildcats never relinquished that early, two-point lead, building their cushion to as many as 13 points twice in the opening 20 minutes, before settling for a 12-point, 37-25, halftime advantage.

And it was more of the same in the second half, as St. Catherine matched its 16-for-34 first-half performance from the field with an identical 16-for-34 effort in the second half. SMU's offensive woes , meanwhile, continued, as the Cardinals shot just 30 percent from the field (19-for-62) and made just 9 of 21 attempts from behind the 3-point line.

Stephanie Anyers (Deer River, Minn.) and Stephanie Huntress (Glenwood City, Wis.) each scored 11 points to lead the way for SMU, while the Wildcats held Cardinal leader scorer Jess Weisbrod (Rollingstone, Minn.) to a season-low one field goal and four points..

"Offensively, we struggled — we weren't as sharp as we  have been lately," said Pearson. "I don't know what it was, we just seemed a step or two slow tonight."