WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota women's basketball team headed into the final week of the regular season needing one win in their final two Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference games to earn a fourth straight trip to the conference playoffs.
 
And the Cardinals weren't about to wait until Saturday's regular-season finale to punch that playoff ticket.
 
Fueled by Octavia Brown's (Broadview, Ill.) first collegiate double-double, the Cardinals locked up one of the conference's six post-season berths, holding off Carleton 64-56 Wednesday at the Saint Mary's Gym.
 
With the victory, the Cardinals improved to 10-7 in conference play and remained tied with Concordia for fourth, one game behind third-place Gustavus and one game in front of Augsburg.
 
A win over Macalester on Saturday—and a Concordia loss to the Auggies—would give Saint Mary's the No. 4 seed and a home playoff game next Tuesday.
 
That's the simplest scenario.
 
From there, it gets a little tricky.
 
If Saint Mary's wins and Gustavus and Concordia both lose, the Cardinals would be tied with the Gusties for third, but GAC would hold the fourth tiebreaker—and the No. 3 seed, while Saint Mary's would be fourth. If Saint Mary's and Concordia both win and Gustavus loses, forcing a three-way tie, Concordia wins second tiebreaker (1-0 vs. Bethel) and Gustavus wins fourth tiebreaker (1-0 vs. Saint Benedict), leaving Concordia third, Gustavus fourth, and Saint Mary's fifth.
 
The Cardinals led by six early, but found themselves deadlocked at 15-15 with just over 11 minutes remaining in the opening half.
 
A 15-2 Saint Mary's burst gave the Cardinals what appeared to be a commanding 13-point, 30-17 advantage—but Carleton answered with an 8-0 run of its own to make it a five-point game, 30-25 1:08 on the clock.
 
Emma Schaefer (Falcon Heights, Minn.) would drain a 3-pointer in the waning second, as the Cardinals pushed their lead to seven, 33-26, at the break.
 
The Cardinals did not relinquish their advantage over the game's final 20 minutes, pushing their advantage to 12, 43-31, only to have Carleton push back and close the gap to three, 49-46 with eight minutes remaining.
 
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Schaefer and Micaela Meredith (Bloomington, Minn.) jump-started an 8-0 run that gave the Cardinals all the cushion they would need en route to snapping a two-game losing streak—not to mention lock up that fourth straight post-season berth.
 
Brown finished with 12 points on 3 of 6 shooting and a 6-for-8 effort from the free throw line, while also hauling in a career-best 10 rebounds in securing career double-double No. 1. Schaefer also finished with 12 points for the Cardinals, who shot 44 percent from the field (25-for-57)—including five 3-pointers—and went 9-for-12 from the charity stripe.
 
Michele Arima netted a game-high 14 points for the Knights, who also got double-figure scoring from Skyler Tsutsui with 11 points.
 
The Cardinals close out the regular season—and bid farewell to their four graduating seniors—on Saturday, when they host Macalester in a 1 p.m. conference contest at the Saint Mary's Gym.