Made my way over those tricky St. Paul streets to get to
the Butler Center on this cold January night to take in this Wednesday evening
contest between visiting SMU which made the trip up the Mighty Mississippi and
CP Rail’s River Sub mainline to take on host St. Kate’s. The Butler Center was unusually chilly on
this night due to a heating malfunction that was being worked on while the
warm-ups were underway. Coming out of
this latest deep Arctic freeze it was arguably the last thing that was needed
but for LA Ram/UCLA guys such as myself it made life a little rough for a
while. J
But the cool temperature inside the Butler Center didn’t
seem to bother either team in the first half anyway. The Cardinals, in fact, bolted out to a quick
8-0 lead by the 17:55 mark behind “3’s” from sophomore point guard Bridget
Pethke and senior shooting guard Darcey Rice and a score down low from strong
sophomore Shelby Auseth. St. Kate’s Head
Coach Sean Pinkerton decided to burn a timeout to try and cool SMU down a bit
and maybe light the fire under his own squad.
The tactic seemed to work as the Wildcats slowly crawled their way into
the thick of things. Trailing 12-2; freshman
sensation LaShay Holt connected with a turnaround jumper at the 15:40 mark. Fellow freshman Kennedy Jennings out of
Dallas Center-Grimes (IA) snared an offensive rebound for a putback at the
14:38 mark and then Holt nailed a “3” from the right wing at the 13:27 mark
that cut the Cardinal lead to 12-9. SMU
would get the lead to 14-10 but the Wildcats would not go away so easily. Holt made good on a drive and finish at the
12:24 mark and then sophomore reserve guard/forward Shauna Horsch uncorked one
of her high-arcing three-pointers from the top of the key at the 11:37 mark to
give St. Kate’s its first lead of the night at 15-14.
Freshman reserve guard Liz Ellens increased the Wildcats
lead to 18-14 with her “3” from the left wing with 10:49 left before SMU
responded. A “3” from Rice from the right
corner along with a steal and lay-up by Pethke and a score by senior post
Courtney Euerle had SMU back up by four at 22-18 with 9:47 left and a score in
the paint by sophomore reserve forward Natalie Larson increased that margin to
six at 24-18 with 8:40 left completing a solid 10-0 run that should have left
the Wildcats in the dust. But not so
fast here. The Wildcats responded with
an impressive 6-0 over the course of two and a half minutes highlighted by a
turnaround jumper by Holt in the lane that had St. Kate’s back up 26-24 and had
SMU Head Coach Mandy Pearson calling a timeout to reorganize her forces. The Cardinals snatched the lead right back when
junior reserve guard Sara Schoenthaler drilled a “3” from the top of the key
with 5:13 left and built the lead to eight when freshman reserve forward Mariam
Awoniyi made consecutive scores with 2:38 and 2:17 left for a 36-28 SMU
lead. Freshman Mari Lee; younger sister
of senior guard/forward Kristen, was able to get one last punch in for the
Wildcats before the break; scoring in the paint with 1:13 left that made it a
36-30 Cardinal lead at the halftime break.
Considering that St. Kate’s was now without the service of starting
sophomore guard Gabby Zehrer with the knee injury she suffered last weekend at
Augsburg, it was, at the very least anyway, encouraging that they were still
right in the thick of things down only six.
The problem with the heat was apparently fixed by
halftime as Butler Center felt much better than it did at the outset. But as things got warmer inside, the
Cardinals started to get on fire and left no doubt about the outcome of this
one. Three quick scores – a layup by
Auseth, a score in the paint by Euerle and a patented flat three-point bomb
from Pethke had SMU up by a 43-30 count and Pinkerton; who had long ago shed
his sportcoat back in the first half, wasted little time in calling a halt to
the action in hopes of slowing the St. Mary’s Express. But the gutty Wildcats, who played very good
team basketball in the first half and kept things reasonably close, could not
escape the Cardinal tidal wave that came at them in the second half. Three scores by Holt in the span of less than
two minutes had the Wildcats back to within eleven; trailing 49-38 by the 11:46
mark but it was here that the Cardinal triumvirate of Schoenthaler, Pethke and
Auseth helped put the game out of reach for good to the tune of a 14-1 SMU run
that had the red-clad Cardinals up 63-39 with 6:28 left. But
this SMU team was not done yet; particularly Auseth who had a fantastic second
half for the Cardinals. A “3” from the
right top area by the Wanamingo native with 5:28 left plus a score in the paint
with 3:54 left now had the Cardinals up comfortably at 72-43. Pearson was able to substitute liberally in
the closing minutes as SMU cruised to a cozy 77-47 victory that improves their
record to 8-1 overall and 4-1 in the highly competitive MIAC.
I’ll gladly eat a dose of not-so-tasty crow on my earlier
take on this SMU team when I said that, while I thought they were definitely a
solid playoff contender I thought it was highly unlikely that they could
replicate last year’s sparkling 22-5 record.
In fact, I may go even one better.
This team may be even BETTER than last year’s version that included both
Jamie Stefely and Jessica Thone and that’s no knock on those two either. Another senior on last year’s team, Brittany
Begrowicz, was in the stands watching her former teammates and she’s not
surprised at all as to how well they’re playing. I’m particularly impressed with Pethke who is
stunningly confident and composed at the point guard spot as a sophomore; and
she’s swiftly carving a niche for herself at that position. While it’s still too early to make any bold
predictions; I still think Bethel can also claim along with SMU as being the
second-best team in the conference, this SMU team is fun to watch and if you
haven’t caught them in action yet you should.
Just as important, while they’re enjoying the moment, they’re not
getting too far ahead of themselves, either.
As Euerle candidly pointed out to me before the team left for Winona, “One
game at a time.”
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