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ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team's approach to Thursday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference semifinal playoff game against top-seeded St. Thomas was simple: Play solid defense, avoid easy UST transition baskets, and keep the Tommies from getting on any extended runs.

The plan may have been simple, but the Tommies made it virtually impossible to implement.

The regular-season champion Tommies scored the game's first four points and never relinquished the lead, holding off a late second-half SMU charge to hand the Cardinals a season-ending 58-45 setback at Schoenecker Arena.

With the win, the Tommies — the top seed and the conference's regular-season champion — will host second-seeded Gustavus, which beat Concordia 61-49 Thursday, in Saturday's MIAC championship game.

SMU, meanwhile, closes out its season at 14-13 overall — the most wins since the Cardinals went 18-8 during the 2004-2005 season.

St. Thomas jumped out to a 12-4 advantage, and led 16-8 with 9:53 remaining in the first half. The Cardinals used a 7-0 run of their own to cut the Tommies' advantage to one, 16-15, but UST outscored SMU 12-3 to take their biggest lead of the half, 28-18, before settling for a nine-point, 30-21 advantage.

Jamie Stefely (Lisle, Ill.) recorded the Cardinals' first two field goals and finished the first half with a team-high nine points. Stefely knocked down four of the Cardinals' eight field goals, as SMU shot 39 percent from the field (8-for-23) in the game's opening 20 minutes.

Down by nine at the break, however, wasn't a major concern for the Cardinals, who rallied from halftime deficits to win six times this season — including Tuesday's 55-52 tournament-opening win over fourth-seeded St. Olaf, in which SMU was down by one, 29-28, at the break.

Against the Tommies, however, that nine-point deficit was just too big a hole to dig out of, as UST built its lead to as many as 13 — and held off the Cardinals' patented second-half charge to oust SMU from post-season play.

The Tommies kicked off the second half in much the same way they opened the game, using an 8-4 run to grab their largest lead of the game, 38-25.

And that's when Jessica Thone (Woodbury, Minn.) hoisted the Cardinals on her shoulders and took control, scoring 13 straight points — including three 3-pointers — to make it a seven-point game, 45-38 with less than five minutes remaining in regulation.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, that would be as close as they would get, as the Tommies closed out the game with a 13-7 burst to ice the win — their 25th straight following a season-opening loss to UW-Stevens Point.

Thone finished with a team-high 16 points for the Cardinals, while Stefely finished with 13 and Courtney Euerle (Litchfield, Minn.) hauled in a career-best 11 rebounds.

Taylor Young netted a game-high 21 points and Maggie Weiers tallied 14 for the Tommies (25-1 overall).