The Teams
Saint Mary's Cardinals (6-6 MIAC, 7-8)
vs.
St. Thomas Tommies (11-1 MIAC, 14-1)
The Vitals
Wednesday, Jan. 31 • SMU Gym • 5:30 p.m.
First Meeting
St. Thomas steamrolled past the Cardinals 89-47 in their first meeting of the season on Jan. 3. It marked the 32nd straight time UST has beaten SMU.
Last Action
The Cardinals are coming off their second straight win, a 51-46 triumph over St. Olaf Saturday. … St. Thomas, meanwhile, ran its league-leading record to 11-1 with an 85-47 win over Hamline Saturday.
This and That
Amy Burns (Winona, Minn.) averaged a team-leading 13.5 ppg for the Cardinals last week. … Colleen O’Hearn (Champlin, Minn.), filling in for the injured Stacy Hammel (Manitowoc, Wis.), averaged 10.5 ppg as SMU beat both St. Catherine and St. Olaf last week. … The Cardinals’ current two-game winning streak is their third such streak this season. … SMU’s 80-point offensive outburst vs. St. Catherine marked the third time this season the Cardinals have scored 80 or more points (all wins). … Wednesday’s game vs. Gustavus is the first of four straight for SMU at home — including three this week in the span of four days.
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CARDINAL PROFILEJenny Gilles
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feature tonight vs. St. Thomas
WINONA, Minn. — It may not have been the most spectacular win of the season — the Cardinals managed just 51 points, including just 22 in the first half — but to Saint Mary’s University women’s basketball coach Kim Fierke, last Saturday’s 51-46 victory over St. Olaf was the most beautiful sight.
Not only did it give the Cardinals a season sweep of the Oles, but it also gave SMU its third two-game winning streak of the season.
“It certainly wasn’t our most artistic performance, but we did what we had to do and got the job done,” said Fierke, whose team started the week with an 80-49 rout of St. Catherine in a game that snapped SMU’s season-high four-game losing streak. “I thought we played very hard from start to finish. We knew coming in that it was going to be a hard-fought game, and that’s exactly what it was.
“We led the entire game, but in the last three minutes, we found ourselves playing more not to lose than playing to win.”
Jenny Gilles (Keizer, Ore.) and Colleen O’Hearn (Champlin, Minn.) led a balanced SMU offensive attack, scoring 12 and 11 points respectively. Defensively, the Cardinals refused to give St. Olaf any breathing room, holding the Oles to just five field goals and 14 points in the opening 20 minutes. St. Olaf managed to outscore the Cardinals 32-29 over the game’s final 20 minutes, but it was too little, too late.
“I was very happy with the way our defense played in both games last week,” said Fierke, whose team did not let either St. Catherine or St. Olaf reach the 50-point mark. “To put two solid games together like that is a great boost for this team.”
Now, if they could just make it three straight … .
That, however, will be no easy task.
The Cardinals will put their two-game win streak on the line tonight against St. Thomas — a team that routed the Cardinals 89-47 earlier this year.
And that’s just the tip of a rather horrifying three-game iceberg.
After tonight’s showdown with St. Thomas, the Cardinals take on Gustavus on Thursday, then play Augsburg on Saturday.
Fortunately, this is one triple feature that’s premiering solely on the Cardinals’ home court.
“This is a big week for us — three games against three very good teams,” admitted Fierke. “But the fact that we have all three at home is great. Anytime you can avoid spending hours on a bus it’s to your advantage.”
So is going into tonight’s game riding a two-game winning streak.
“This team has gained a lot of confidence,” Fierke said. “But, more importantly, we are improving with every game — which means that we are peaking at the right time.”
The fact that the Cardinals are playing some of their best basketball of the season makes the prospect of playing the Tommies and the Gusties on back-to-back nights that much easier to stomach.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge of playing these teams again,” said Fierke. “There’s no question we’ve improved — now we can see just far we’ve come since the last time we played them.”