By
DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
WINONA, Minn. — As if playing one team ranked in the top 10 wasn't tough enough, the Saint Mary's University men's basketball team had to face two — in a span of three days.
Coming off an 80-62 road loss to fourth-ranked Saint John's on Wednesday, the Cardinals returned home Saturday for a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference showdown against St. Thomas — ranked ninth in the latest D3hoops.com Top 25.
And for 20 minutes, the Cardinals gave the Tommies all they could handle.
Then the Tommies got hot — really, really hot.
St. Thomas knocked down 12 second-half 3-pointers — including eight in a span of seven minutes — as the Tommies pulled away for an 81-64 conference win over the Cardinals at the Saint Mary's Gym.
The Tommies could not shake the Cardinals in the game's opening 20 minutes, building a lead as big as eight, 19-11, only to have Saint Mary's roar right back, cutting the deficit to one, 30-29, on a
Kevin Gleason (Minneapolis, Minn.) 3-pointer with 2:10 remaining in the half.
St. Thomas would score seven of the final 10 points — including a 3-pointer by Burt Hedstrom that beat the buzzer to give the Tommies a seven-point cushion, 39-32 at the break.
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, Hedstrom's trey to end the half was a sign of things to come from the Tommies in the second half.
Leading by two, 42-40, St. Thomas went of a 3-point-shooting tear, knocking down eight treys in outscoring the Cardinals 24-6 to push the Tommie lead to 20, 66-46. Saint Mary's whittled the lead down to nine, 71-62 on a pair of
Eli Cave (St. Paul, Minn.) free throws with 5:30 remaining, but that was as close as the Cardinals would get.
Cave finished with his first double-double of the season, scoring 13 points and adding 13 rebounds — including 11 boards in the first half.
Raheem Anthony (Chicago, Ill.) also scored in double figures for Saint Mary's, finishing with 12 points — all in the second half.
As a team, the Cardinals shot 43.1 percent from the field (22-for-51) with five 3-pointers and a 15 of 20 effort from behind the 3-point line.
The Tommies, who got 18 points from Riley Miller and 16 from Anders Nielson to lead four players in double figures, shot 41.8 percent from the field (28-for-57), but were a deadly 19-for-44 (43.2 percent) from behind the arc — including 12 of 21 in the second half alone.
The Cardinals (4-6 MIAC, 7-8 overall) hit the road on Monday, heading to Carleton's West Gym in Northfield, Minn., for a 7 p.m. conference matchup against the Knights. The Tommies (9-1 MIAC, 13-2 overall), meanwhile, return home to Schoenecker Arena in St. Paul, Minn., on Monday, playing host to Bethel in a 7 p.m. MIAC showdown.
