WINONA, Minn. — You'll have to forgive Saint Mary's University women's basketball coach David Foley if he was suffering from a severe case of déjà vu heading into the fourth quarter of Wednesday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against St. Catherine.
 
After all, Foley's Cardinals were in an eerily similar situation just seven days ago.
 
Unfortunately, unlike last Wednesday's remarkable come-from-behind victory — in which the Cardinals rallied from a 19-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat St. Olaf 62-60 — this time around, a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit was just too big a mountain to climb.
 
The Cardinals could not cut into the Wildcats' 47-32 fourth-quarter advantage, as St. Catherine put an end to Saint Mary's two-game winning streak by dealing SMU a 59-46 conference setback at the Saint Mary's Gym.
 
The loss overshadowed a milestone performance by Brooklyn Paulson (Holmen, Wis.), who — with her second trey of the game with 7:43 to play in regulation — surpassed Ashley Luehmann '06 as the program's all-time career leader in 3-pointers with 208.
 
After Paulson kicked off the game with a basket and Katelyn Cruze (Litchfield, Minn.) gave SMU a 4-2 lead with a field goal, the Cardinals found themselves playing catch-up the rest of the half.
 
The Wildcats got a 3-pointer from Greta Schimnowski to grab a 5-4 lead — and stretched that advantage to as many as nine, 17-8 — before SMU closed the quarter on a 5-0 run with a Grace Schaffer (Farmington, Minn.) bucket and a last-second 3-pointer from Paulson to get the Cardinals within four, 17-13, at the quarter break.
 
Saint Mary's picked up where it left off to open the second quarter, rattling off seven of the first nine points — capped by an Izzy Goettelman (Winona, Minn.) layup — to regain the lead, 20-19. The lead did not last long, however, as St. Catherine rattled off 10 unanswered points as part of a half-ending 17-6 run that gave SCU a 10-point cushion, 36-26, at the half.
 
And just like the Cardinals did to open the second quarter, the Wildcats were the ones to come out of the break sizzling, outscoring SMU 8-4 through the first six minutes and 11-6 for the quarter to push their lead to 15, 47-32 heading into the game's final quarter.
 
Saint Mary's whittled the SCU lead to seven, 53-46 on an Ashley Streveler (Colby, Wis.) 3-pointer with two minutes remaining, but that was as close as the Cardinals would get, as St. Catherine closed out the game with six unanswered points for the 59-46 victory.
 
Paulson closed out the game with a team-leading 12 points, while Cruze also finished in double figures with 10 points. As a team, the Cardinals shot 32.7 percent from the field (16-for-49) with four 3-pointers, while going 10-for-12 from the free throw line. St. Catherine, which got a team-high 10 points from Rachel Randleman — and got at least two points from all 10 players who saw the court — finished 21-for-60 (23.1 percent) from the field, with six 3-pointers, and converted 11 of 15 attempts from the charity stripe.
 
The Cardinals (2-3 MIAC, 2-3 overall) are back in action on Saturday, when they travel to Concordia's Memorial Auditorium in Moorhead, Minn., for a 3 p.m. conference showdown with the Cobbers.
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