Game Summary vs. Carleton / GameDay Online / Photo Gallery

WINONA, Minn. — When you start three sophomores and two freshmen, and the eight players that see playing time consist of one senior, three sophomores and four freshmen, there has to be learning curve.

And Monday evening, the Saint Mary's University women's basketball team learned another valuable lesson.

Call it Crunch Time 101.

The Cardinals gave Carleton all it could handle Monday evening at the SMU Gym. After trailing by as many as 13 in the second half, SMU made it a three possession game with less than three minutes remaining, only to catch a few unlucky breaks in falling to the Knights 67-57 in a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference contest.

“I was very happy with the way we played — I thought, start-to-finish, it was probably our best all-around performance,” said SMU coach Mandy Pearson. “We didn't have those big gaps where teams went on double-digit runs against us, and we put ourselves in position down the stretch to win the ball game.

“Unfortunately, we got a couple of bad breaks — a toe on the (3-point line) that resulted in a two-point basket, rather than a three, an unlucky turnover,” Pearson added. “We just didn't get the ball to bounce our way when we needed it most.

“With a young team like we've got, it's going to be a learning experience all season — and tonight was just another of those lessons. We really haven't been in a tightly contested game like this down the stretch, and hopefully everyone learned from their mistakes.”

Michelle Carne (Escanaba, Mich.) led a trio of SMU players in double figures, scoring 15 points, while Cherie Kulig (Independence, Wis.) chipped in 12 points and Jess Miller (Carver, Minn.) missed out on a double-double by one rebound, finishing with 10 points and nine boards.

Sarah Lincoln scored a game-high 18 points to lead Carleton, which had four players score more than 10 points, as Hannah Oken-Berg, Annie Eckhoff and Sarah Kunelius all chipped in 11 points.

SMU drained five of its seven 3-pointers in the first half, but it was the Knights who got the hot had late, outscoring the Cardinals 16-10 over the final 12 minutes to take a 33-28 lead into the locker room at the break.

Carleton pushed that lead to 12, 54-42 with under nine minutes to play, but SMU battled back, cutting the gap to eight, 58-50 with 2:47 on the clock. That, however, would be as close as the Cardinals would get in falling to 0-6 in the conference and 0-9 overall.

“The improvement is there, every game we are getting better,” Pearson said. “We just have to keep learning from our mistakes and working hard every day.”