NEW ULM, Minn. — The trend continued for the Saint Mary's University women's basketball team.

The Cardinals had not lost – or won — back-to-back games in starting the season 2-3. Each time SMU would drop a game, the Cardinals would follow it up with a loss.

So, it should come as no surprise that SMU would rebound from last Wednesday's 53-47 loss to Concordia with a win Monday evening against Martin Luther.

The Cardinals won all right, but it wasn't easy — not by a long shot.

Alyse Coates (West St. Paul, Minn.) netted a pair of field goals with 6.2 seconds remaining in regulation to lift the Cardinals to a 47-46 nonconference victory over the Knights.

"(Martin Luther) is a good team, they played us tough from start to finish," said SMU coach Dan Messmann, whose team heads into the semester break with a 3-3 overall record. "We got out of the gate pretty slow again, but then zone (the Knights) for most of the second half and really shut them down."

The Cardinals, who have become notorious for slow starts, managed just 19 points in the first half – the third time in six games that SMU has netted less than 20 points in the opening 20 minutes — and were starting at a 31-19 deficit at the break.

"I don't know what it is, but we have not been very effective offensively in the first half," said Messmann. "We were a little better in the second half, but it still wasn't one of our better shooting nights."

The Cardinals, who got a team-high 14 points from Ashley Luehmann (Lewiston, Minn.), shot just 37 percent from the field (18-for-48) and made only 7 of 16 free throws.

"It might not have been the prettiest performance, but we were able to come up with the win, and that's the bottom line," said Messmann, whose team is now off until Dec. 31, when they play host to Coe in a nonconference game. "We've still got a lot of work to do, but we're getting there."