WINONA, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University men's basketball took the court Saturday afternoon for its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Carleton, it marked the Cardinals' fifth game in the last 11 days — and their third in the last six.
 
And for the game's first 20 minutes, that fatigue showed, as the Cardinals found themselves staring at a 14-point deficit four minutes into Saturday's contest.
 
Unfortunately for Cardinals, try as they might, they could not make up that deficit, falling to the Knights 58-47 at the Saint Mary's Gym.
 
The Cardinals dug themselves an early hole — a rather large one — surrendering the game's first 14 points, and were staring at a 17-2 deficit just five minutes into the opening half.
 
Saint Mary's began clawing its way out of the early deficit, using a 12-2 run to get within five, 21-16 with 8:06 to play. Unfortunately, the Knights would knock the Cardinals back down to the bottom, closing the half by scoring 10 of the final 15 points to take a 31-21 lead into the locker room at the break.
 
The Knights came out of the break pouring in seven unanswered points to push their lead to a game-high 17, 38-17, but the Cardinals were not about to throw in the towel, whittling the Carleton advantage to six on three separate occasions — 49-43 on an Owen Ziegler (Mount Horeb, Wis.) 3-pointers; 51-44 on a Hunter Phillips (Minong, Wis.) bucket; and 53-47 on a driving layup by Raheem Anthony (Chicago, Ill.) with 1:51 to play.
 
That, however, would be as close as the Cardinals would get, as SMU came up empty over the game's final two minutes — missing on its final three field goal attempts and turned the ball over three times — and Carleton would knock down 5 of 6 free throws down the stretch to seal the win.
 
Cameron Mallory (Joliet, Ill.) finished with a team-high nine points, while Ziegler chipped in eight. Anthony, who entered the game averaging 20.4 ppg — sitting second in the league in scoring — was limited to six points.
 
As a team, the Cardinals shot 32.7 percent from the field (18-for-55) with six 3-pointers, and were 5 of 7 from the free throw line.
 
The Cardinals (3-5 MIAC, 5-7 overall) are right back in action on Monday, as they head to Augsburg's Si Melby Hall in Minneapolis, Minn., for a 7 p.m. MIAC matchup against the Auggies.