GALLATIN, Tenn. — The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team took the court for the second day of the Music City Classic once again squaring off against an opponent the program had never faced before.
And this time around, the end result had the Cardinals whistling a much happier tune.
Just 24 hours after dropping a 71-65 decision to Penn State Behrend in the teams' first-ever meeting, the Cardinals faced off against yet another unfamiliar foe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
And for the second straight game, the Cardinals found themselves deadlocked heading into the fourth quarter.
Unlike Thursday's six-point loss, however, the Cardinals in general — and
Brooklyn Paulson (Holmen, Wis.) and
Izzy Goettelman (Winona, Minn.) in particular — were the ones to dominate the final 10-minute quarter, outscoring MIT 21-14 to secure a 60-53 victory.
The Cardinals found themselves playing catch-up for most of the first half, trailing by five after the first quarter and three at the intermission.
Katelyn Cruze (Litchfield, Minn.) netted SMU's first three points of the game — all on free throws — for an early 3-2 Cardinal lead, but the Engineers wrestled away the momentum, scoring 15 of the quarter's final 23 points for a 17-12 lead after 10 minutes of play.
Saint Mary's closed to within one twice in the second quarter — once on a Cruze layup to make it 19-18 and then again on a pair of Cruze free throws to cut the MIT lead to 21-20 — before finally pulling even, 24-24 on a
Riley Schiernbeck (Ida Grove, Iowa) layup with two minutes to play before halftime. Over those final two minutes, MIT regained a five-point advantage, 29-24, before
Ashley Streveler (Colby, Wis.) beat the buzzer to get SMU within three, 29-26 at the break.
MIT once again tried to pull away in the third frame, building leads as big as six points on three separate occasions, only to have Paulson and Goettelman hoist the Cardinals on their shoulders and carry them into a 39-39 tie with 10 minutes to play.
Goettelman and Paulson accounted for nine of SMU's 13 third-quarter points — with
Graysin Hartjes (Kaukauna, Wis.) scoring SMU's first basket of the quarter and Streveler adding a buzzer-beater at the end to account for the Cardinals' other four points.
And Paulson and Goettelman were just getting warmed up.
After surrendering the first four points of the fourth quarter, Cruze cut the SMU deficit to two, 43-41 — and that's where SMU's dynamic duo took over.
Paulson completed a three-point play, Goettelman delivered a pair of 3-pointers and Paulson added another buck to cap a 13-2 SMU run that gave the Cardinals their biggest lead of the game, 52-45 midway through the quarter.
MIT trimmed the Cardinal lead to one, 52-51, but that was as close as the Engineers would get, as SMU closed the game going 5 of 6 from the line with a Paulson 3-pointer chipped in to seal the seven-point victory.
Paulson finished with 21 points, marking the second straight game in which the senior has eclipsed the 20-point barrier — having netting 23 against Penn State Behrend on Thursday — while Goettelman chipped in 18 points. The duo accounted for 26 of the Cardinals' 34 points after halftime.
Cruze equaled her career highs in both points (11) and rebounds (10) en route to her second double-double of the season for the Cardinals, who finished 21-for-55 from the field (38.2 percent) with four 3-pointers and a 14 of 18 showing from the free throw line.
The Cardinals (3-6 overall) return to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference action on Wednesday, heading to Hamline's Hutton Arena in St. Paul, Minn., for a 7 p.m. showdown with the Pipers.
