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.

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, 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 Winona State charge to post its sixth win of the season.