WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's basketball team is heating up at just the right time, as the Cardinals enter their final four games of the regular season riding a two-game winning a streak and in the thick of the MIAC playoff race.

And as hot as the Cardinals are as a team, there's no one hotter than Jessica Thone (Woodbury, Minn.), who sandwiched a pair of 20-point performances around a mid-week 13-point effort against St. Catherine, earning the junior guard Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors, it was announced Monday.

Thone, who has now scored 20 or more points six times in her career, netted SMU's last 11 points — including all nine in overtime — in last Sunday's heartbreaking 60-59 loss to Concordia, and followed that up with 13 points in a 67-44 win over St. Catherine and 20 points in SMU's come-from-behind, 57-52 win over Macalester Saturday.

The conference's assist leader with 102, Thone has recorded 10 or more points in 11 straight games — and 16 times in SMU's 21 contests this season — and enters Wednesday's conference showdown at Gustavus boasting a team-leading 13.4 ppg.

The Cardinals — looking for their first appearance in the six-team MIAC tournament field since the 2004-2005 season — head into the final two weeks of the regular season sitting in fifth place in the MIAC standings at 11-7, one game in front of Bethel (10-8) and two up on Augsburg (9-9). SMU closes out its regular season with games against Gustavus (15-3), Augsburg (9-9), Hamline (5-13) and St. Thomas (18-0).