WINONA, Minn. — Talk about a pair of teams riding an emotional high.
The Saint Mary's University and Hamline men's basketball teams took the court Wednesday evening on the heels of thrilling, last-second victories in their most recent contests.
Saint Mary's got a
Jabari Sawyer (Joliet, Ill.) basket with 0.3 seconds remaining in regulation to lift SMU to a 74-72 victory over St. Olaf last Saturday, while Andrew Cimperman knocked down a pair of free throws with two seconds to play, as the Pipers also closed out Saturday's conference contest with 74 points, edging league-leading Saint John's 74-73 — dealing the Johnnies their first MIAC loss of the season.
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, there would be no last-second game-winning heroics this time around — the Pipers made sure of that.
Hamline outscored the Cardinals 72-39 in the game's final 28 minutes — including 53-34 in the second half — as the Pipers dealt SMU a 99-65 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference setback at Hutton Arena.
The Cardinals had the upper hand early in the opening half, grabbing their biggest lead, 12-7, on a pair of free throws by
Jabari Sawyer (Chicago, Ill.). The Cardinals were still playing from out front with 8:32 to play, leading 23-21 on a
Breyton Buysman (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) knocked down a jumper — two of his 10 first-half points.
From there, however, Pipers took over, outscoring Saint Mary's 25-9 over those final eight minutes to take a 15-point, 46-31 lead into the locker room at the break.
And things just went from bad to worse for the Cardinals in the second half, as the Pipers opened the stanza with eight unanswered points and never took their foot of the accelerator, leading by as many as 43, 93-50, before SMU ended the game on a 15-6 to make the final 99-65.
Buysman closed out the game as SMU's leading scorer, going 6-for-15 from the field, with a pair of 3-pointers, and knocking down his lone free throw attempt to finish with 15 points. As a team, Saint Mary's shot 43.9 percent from the field (25-for-57), but were just 8 of 15 from beyond the arc, while also draining 7 of 9 free throws.
The Cardinals (3-10 MIAC, 4-14 overall) return home on Saturday, when they welcome Bethel to the Saint Mary's Gym for a 3 p.m. MIAC contest.
