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MOORHEAD, Minn. — While Mother Nature was doing her best to put the entire Midwest in a deep freeze — including temperatures hovering near or blow zero in the Moorhead area — two of the hottest teams in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference squad off inside the comfy confines of Memorial Auditorium Saturday afternoon.

The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team entered Saturday's showdown with Concordia having won three straight and six of its first seven, while the Cobbers were winners of two straight and five of their last six.

And speaking of streaks, the Cobbers also boasted a pair of rather lengthy ones against Saint Mary's. Concordia entered Saturday's showdown owning an 18-game winning streak against the Cardinals — including winning the last 11 meetings at Memorial Auditorium.

When the final horn sounded Saturday, only one of those winning streaks remained intact — the Cardinals'.

Saint Mary's quickly erased a four-point, halftime deficit, built its lead to as many as 12 in the second half, and held off a late Cobber rally to collect a key, 66-57 conference win.

With the win, the Cardinals improved to 4-1 in conference play and remained one game behind league-leaders St. Thomas and Bethel, while also improving to 7-1 overall — marking the second straight season SMU has opened with seven wins in its first eight games.

After a see-saw first nine minutes — in which neither team led by more than two points — the final 11 minutes of the opening half were anything but see-saw.

Trailing 11-10, the Cardinals used a two-minute, 11-2 run to take their biggest lead of the half, 21-13, only to have Concordia respond with runs of 11-0 and 7-2 to grab an eight-point lead of its own, 31-23, with 2:34 remaining.

The Cardinals would then close the game's opening 20 minutes with a 7-3 scoring advantage to cut the CC lead to 34-30 heading into the locker room at the break.

And SMU started the second half in much the same fashion it ended the first, as Shelby Auseth (Wanamingo, Minn.) drained a pair of 3-pointers to put the Cardinals back out front, 36-34 with 17:48 remaining.

The Cardinals would push their lead to double digits on three occasions over the final 18 minutes — 54-44, 56-46 and 58-46 — only to have Concordia cut the gap to five, 62-57, with 2:54 remaining.

That, however, would be as close as the Cobbers would get, as Bridget Pethke (New London, Wis.) drained four straight free throws to ice the victory.

Darcey Rice (Eagan, Minn.) led the way for the Cardinals, scoring a career-high 16 points — including 13 in the first half. Auseth, coming off a career-best 28-point effort against North Central (Ill.) on Dec. 28, chipped in 12 points against the Cobbers, while Pethke and Courtney Euerle (Litchfield, Minn.) also finished in double figures with 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Olivia Johnson and Greta Walsh finished with 15 and 10 points, respectively to pace the Cobbers (4-2 MIAC, 6-3 overall).

The Cardinals will put their four-game winning streak on the line on Monday, as SMU returns home to host Carleton in a 7:30 p.m. conference contest at the SMU Gym.