WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's basketball team head its program-record eight-game winning streak snapped with a heartbreaking 75-72 loss at Macalester.
Three days later, Saint Mary's showed that that three-point setback was nothing more than a speed bump in the Cardinals' drive to a conference post-season berth.
But there was nothing easy about getting back on the winning track for the Cardinals,
Raheem Anthony (Chicago, Ill.) matched his career-high with 41 points — including a pair of win-clinching free throws with 13.8 seconds remaining — as the Cardinals survived a furious Concordia second-half comeback in beating the Cobbers 85-81 Saturday afternoon at the Saint Mary's Gym.
Two minutes into the first half the Cardinals were savoring an 8-0 lead, as
Breyton Buysman (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) sandwiched a pair of 3-pointers around a
Raheem Anthony (Chicago, ill.) layup.
Missing on their first five field goal attempts, Concordia finally got on the board on a bucket by Matthew Johnson to make it a 10-2 SMU lead, only to have
Owen Ziegler (Mount Horeb, Wis.) answer with a 3-point bomb to push the Cardinal advantage to 11, 13-2.
Saint Mary's would lead by 11 twice more in the opening half, and thanks in large part to Anthony's Midas Touch — scoring the Cardinals' last 13 points of the half en route to a 19-point opening 20 minutes — the Cardinals took a seven-point, 39-32 lead into the locker room at the break.
It took the Cardinals less than five minutes — and four 3-pointers, a field goal and a pair of free throws — to expand their lead to 18, 55-37. SMU would recorded nine of the next 16 points and the lead ballooned to 20, 64-44, with just under 13 minutes to play.
The Cobbers, however, would not cave under the weight of that 20-point deficit, going on a 20-4 run to whittled the SMU lead to four, 70-66 with 6:19 remaining in regulation. And CC wasn't done, tacking on seven of the next nine point to take its first lead of the game, 73-72 on a pair of Dylan Inniger free throws with 4:19 still on the clock.
The two teams would take turns playing with a one-point lead, before SMU went on an 8-2 run, capped by a three-point play by Anthony to give SMU an 82-75 lead with 1:18 to go.
Concordia clawed within one, 82-81 with 13.4 seconds to play and Johnson on the line for one shot. CC, however, was whistled for a lane violation — on what would have been the game-tying made free throw. Anthony was fouled on SMU's ensuring possession and promptly knocked down both free throws — his ninth and 10 straight from the line for the game — and
Bruce Lockwood (Shakopee, Minn.) added another free throw seven seconds later to seal the win.
Fueled by his 10-for-10 showing from the free throw line, Anthony matched his career-high with his 41-point performance — the fourth time this season the senior has netted 30 or more points in a game. The 41 points are the third-most in program history and just five shy of the school-record 46 posted by Ken Jansen against Macalester during the 1956-57 season.
Buysman and
Jabari Sawyer (Chicago, Ill.) also scored in double figures for the Cardinals, finishing with 16 and 15 points, respectively. As a team, Saint Mary's shot 53.6 percent from the field (30-for-56) with 12 3-pointers and a 13 of 14 showing from the charity stripe.
The Cardinals (7-4 MIAC, 11-6 overall) are now off until next Saturday, when they travel to Northfield, Minn., for a 1 p.m. MIAC matchup against Carleton.
