For the official GameDay Program for today's game pdf / click here (pdf)

THE MATCHUP

Saint Mary's vs. Bethel vs. Monday, Jan. 3, 2005 SMU Gym 7:30 p.m.

GAMEDAY PLAYER PROFILE

Sarah Murphy Year Sophomore Position Forward Hometown Belle Plaine, Minn.

WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team closed out the 2004 portion of their schedule in the worst possible way, dropping back-to-back games to Carleton and Concordia.

The Cardinals rang in the 2005 portion in a much better fashion — knocking off Winona State 72-66 Saturday afternoon.

Angie Arrington (Spring Grove, Minn.) and Jessica Weisbrod (Rollingstone, Minn.) each scored 19 points and Jamie Rattunde (Rollingstone, Minn.) added 17 as the Cardinals snapped their two-game losing streak.

“It was good to come back from the long break and get back on the winning track,” said SMU coach Dan Messmann, whose team had not beaten Winona State since an 82-70 win early in the 1996-97 season. “We have a pretty good rivalry (with Winona State) and I think everyone was pretty pumped up to be playing them.”

The Cardinals put things out of reach early, scoring the game's first 11 points — eight coming from Arrington, who hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first 1:35 and was a perfect 4-for-4 from beyond the arc in scoring 17 first-half points. SMU built the lead to 13 on another 3-pointer from Arrington midway through the half, before settling for a 33-24 halftime advantage.

It was more of the same in the second half as SMU led by as many as 14, 58-44, before holding off a late-game WSU charge to post its sixth win of the season.

“It was important for us to put together a good game (against Winona State), especially since we jump right back into conference play (tonight),” said Messmann, whose team plays host to Bethel tonight in the first of three key conference games over the next six days. “We got off on the right foot, now, hopefully, we can just keep building off of that.”