WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University women's basketball coach David Foley could not have written a better opening chapter to the season than the Cardinals' opening 10 minutes against UW-Stevens Point Tuesday evening.
 
Chapters 2, 3, and 4, however, didn't follow quite the same plot line.
 
Saint Mary's jumped out to a five-point, 15-10, lead after the game's first 10-minute quarter, but the Pointers would outscore the Cardinals 63-43 over the final 30 minutes — including 28-11 in the second quarter — in dealing SMU a 73-58 nonconference setback.
 
Saint Mary's came out firing from the opening tip, as Brooklyn Paulson (Holmen, Wis.) knocked down the Cardinals first basket on her first shot of the game to put SMU in front 2-0. UW-Stevens Point would score the next four points for their only lead of the first half, 4-2.
 
The Cardinals would build their lead to as many as five on three separate occasions in the game's opening 10 minutes, including a quarter-ending 15-10 lead on an Alyssa Coleman (Matteson, Ill.) jumper.
 
Saint Mary's pushed its lead eight on a rare, four-point play by Izzy Goettelman (Winona, Minn.) with 6:11 to go until halftime, but the Pointers were unfazed, using a 15-0 run to transform that eight-point deficit into a seven-point, 30-23 advantage with 2:19 to play until halftime.
 
Goettelman put an end to the Pointers' run with a free throw to cut the deficit to six, 30-24, but by the time the half expired, UW-Stevens Point had scored eight of the final 10 points to take a 38-26 lead into the locker room at the break.
 
The second half started in much the same fashion as the first, as Paulson knocked down SMU's first field goal attempt of the third quarter, and added a free throw, to whittle the UW-SP lead to nine, 38-29.
 
That, however, would be as close as the Cardinals would get in the third frame, as UW-Stevens Point held a 21-18 scoring edge the rest of the way to put SMU in a 15-point hole, 59-44, heading into the game's final 10 minutes.
 
The Pointers put a serious monkey wrench in any hopes the Cardinals had of a comeback, scoring the first seven points of the fourth quarter, and Saint Mary's would get no closers than 14 the rest of the way.
 
Paulson finished with a team-best 18 points, going 6-for-13 from the field — including one 3-pointer — and was 5 of 7 from the free throw line. Jada Biermeier (Eau Claire, Wis.) and Goettelman also finished in double figures, scoring 12 and 10 points, respectively.
 
As a team, Saint Mary's shot 40.4 percent from the field (19-for-47), but were just 3 of 14 from behind the 3-point line, and hit 17 of 30 free throw attempts.
 
The Cardinals (0-1 overall) are now off until Monday, when they travel to New Ulm, Minn., for a 7 p.m. nonconference game against Martin Luther.