WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota women's basketball team put on a defensive clinic Tuesday evening in its nonconference game against Viterbo.
The Cardinals limited the V-Hawks to just 40 points—including a combined 16 in the middle two quarters—and forced Viterbo into 14 turnovers and 28 percent shooting from the field in cruising to a 66-40 victory at the Saint Mary's Gym.
While the Saint Mary's defense was clamping down on the V-Hawks, the pair of
Emma Schaefer (Roseville, Minn.) and
Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.) was heating things up at the offensive end.
Schaefer scored a game-high 14 points in just 16 minutes of work, while Blattner poured in 13 points and added eight rebounds in 23 minutes of playing time.
Brittney Flom (Kenyon, Minn.) also scored in double figures, finishing with 10 points.
Blattner got the Cardinals off and running, scoring their first six points, as Saint Mary's jumped out to a 6-2 lead. Saint Mary's pushed the lead to six three times, before settling for a four-point, 18-14 lead after the game's opening quarter.
Viterbo cut the gap to one twice early in the second quarter—the second time at 21-20 with 6:16 remaining before halftime. That, however, would be the last field goal the V-Hawks would score in the quarter, as Saint Mary's scored 11 unanswered points as part of a half-ending 14-1 run that gave the Cardinals a commanding, 34-21 lead heading into the locker room at the break.
And it was more of the same in the second half, as the Cardinals outscored the V-Hawks 20-9 in the third quarter to push their lead to 24, 54-30, before holding a 12-10 edge in the game's final 10 minutes.
As a team, Saint Mary's shot 45 percent from the field (26-for-58)—including knocking down 3 of 8 3-pointers—and were 11 of 19 from the free throw line. Viterbo, meanwhile, could not generate any open shots against the stingy Cardinal defense, making just 16 of 57 field goals—not to mention hitting only 2 of 22 from behind the arc—in falling for the seventh time in eight games.
The Cardinals (3-1 overall), who have now won back-to-back contests, are back in action on Saturday, traveling to Duluth, Minn., for a 3 p.m. nonconference game against St. Scholastica.
