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WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team kicked off the second half of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference schedule Wednesday evening.

And this time around, the end result was much more to the Cardinals' liking.

SMU suffered its lone loss of the season in their first meeting against Bethel on Dec. 4, falling to the Royals 78-69.

Since that time, the Cardinals put together a 10-game winning streak, not to mention climbing to No. 25 in the latest D3hoops.com Top 25 — as well as claiming the top spot in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings.

So when the two teams squared off again on Wednesday, the Cardinals had a little score to settle with the Royals — and settle it they did.

Led by Courtney Euerle's (Litchfield, Minn.) double-double of 14 points and 12 rebounds, the Cardinals raced out to an 11-point first-half advantage and never looked back in handing BU a 71-54 MIAC setback at the SMU Gym.

With the win, the Cardinals pushed their season-high winning streak to 11 straight — while maintaining their stranglehold on the conference's top spot with a near-perfect 11-1 MIAC record. Bethel, meanwhile, fell to 9-3 in conference play and dropped out of a three-way tie for second and into fourth in the standings behind Saint Mary's, Concordia and St. Thomas.

The Cardinals were in control in the first half, trailing just twice — 2-0 and 5-4 — while building leads as big as 11, 27-16, with 8:26 remaining on a jumper by Octavia Brown (Broadview, Ill.). The Royals cut the deficit to three, 31-28, but the Cardinals ended the half on an 8-2 run — including an Emma Schaefer (Roseville, Minn.) 3-pointer at the buzzer to give SMU a 39-31 halftime advantage.

SMU continued to keep the Royals in their rearview mirror through much of the second half, with Bethel cutting the lead down to five, 53-48, but Saint Mary's answered with an 11-0 run that gave the Cardinals a 64-48 edge — and the Royals never challenged the rest of the way.

Along with Euerle's double-double — her second of the season — SMU also got 12 points from Darcey Rice (Eagan, Minn.), 11 from Bridget Pethke (New London, Wis.) and 10 from Schaefer.

SMU shot 46 percent from the field (26-for-61), while knocking down 7 of 14 3-pointers and finishing 8-for-10 from the free throw line. Bethel — which got 17 points fro Kalli Zimmermann — shot just 26 percent from the field (15-for-58) and were just 3 of 17 from behind the 3-point line.

The Cardinals (14-1 overall) return to action on Saturday, as they travel to St. Joseph, Minn., for a 3 p.m. MIAC showdown with Saint Benedict.