ST. PAUL, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota women's basketball team took the court for a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference contest, the Cardinals coasted to their fourth straight conference win with an 85-47 victory over Carleton on Dec. 16.
 
The last time St. Catherine hit the hardwood in conference play, the Wildcats knocked off then-sixth-ranked St. Thomas 67-63—their first win over UST since the 2010-11 season.
 
Fortunately for Saint Mary's coach Brent Pollari, it was the Cardinals who put together a repeat winning performance.
 
Although, the Cardinals' conference victory over St. Catherine was far from a 38-point cakewalk.
 
Saint Mary's got a career-high 27 points from Brandi Blattner—including 11 of the team's final 17 points—and the Cardinals rallied from a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit en route to a 71-67 victory over the Wildcats at Butler Center.
 
The Cardinals opened the scoring with a layup by Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.), but the Wildcats rattled off seven unanswered points and went on to take a 13-11 advantage after the game's opening 10 minutes.
 
St. Catherine maintained its two-point lead early in the second quarter, 17-15, but the Cardinals used an 8-0 run to take a six-point, 23-17 lead, and headed into the locker room at halftime leading 31-27.
 
Saint Mary's continued to have the upper hand early in the third quarter, building nine-point leads twice, before pushing their cushion to 11, 47-36 on a Haley Trom (Hampton, Minn.) 3-pointer with 3:33 remaining in the third stanza.
 
Those final three minutes, however, belonged to St. Catherine, as the Wildcats scored nine consecutive points as part of a half-ending 14-3 burst that knotted the game at 50-50 heading into the game's final 10-minute quarter.
 
St. Catherine appeared on the way to handing Saint Mary's its first conference loss of the season, building its lead to as many as nine, twice—including 65-56 with 4:44 remaining in regulation.
 
Enter Blattner.
 
The freshman, who scored 13 points in the first half, put the Cardinals on her shoulders over the game's final four-plus minutes, scoring 11 of Saint Mary's next 13 points, as the Cardinals transformed that nine-point deficit into a 67-67 deadlock with 1:55 on the clock.
 
Bridget Pethke (New London, Wis.) followed with a basket to give the Cardinals the lead for good, 69-67, and added a 2-for-4 showing from the free throw line to ice the Saint Mary's win.
 
Along with her career-best 27 points—four points better than her 23-point effort against UW-Stout last Saturday—Blattner also hauled in a game-high 12 rebounds en route to her fourth career double-double.
 
Trom equaled her career high with 15 points for Saint Mary's, while Micaela Meredith (Bloomington, Minn.) chipped in 10 points and Emma Schaefer (Roseville, Minn.) added a team-best five assists.
 
Four Wildcats accounted for 59 of SCU's 67 points, led by Meg Clark with 17. Audra Clark finished with 15, while Mari Lee and Shauna Horsch also scored in double figures with 14 and 13 points, respectively.
 
The Cardinals (5-0 MIAC, 11-1 overall)—who pushed their winning streak to three—return to conference play on Saturday, traveling to Northfield, Minn., for a 3 p.m. conference showdown against St. Olaf.