By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
ARDEN HILLS, Minn. — For the first three quarters of Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game between the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota and Bethel women's basketball teams, no lead was safe—the minute one team went on a run, the other answered.
 
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, that trend did not carry over into the fourth quarter.
 
Bethel opened the fourth quarter with five unanswered points and outscored the Cardinals 29-13 in the final 10-minute period in dealing Saint Mary's an 80-62 setback at the Robertson Center Gym.
 
The Cardinals held a slight—very slight—advantage through the game's opening 20 minutes, building leads as big as four points in the first quarter and six points in the second, before settling for a four-point, 29-25 halftime advantage.
 
The Cardinals scored first and built a 9-6 advantage, only to have BU rattle off four unanswered points to grab a 10-9 lead. Saint Mary's, however, closed the opening quarter scoring seven of the final 11 points for a 16-14 lead.
 
Bethel scored the first four points of Quarter No. 2 to take an 18-16 lead. After trading baskets for 18-18 and 20-20 ties, Saint Mary's grabbed its biggest lead of the half, 25-20 getting a field goal from Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.) and a 3-pointer from Alexa Huisman (Adrian, Minn.), with less than five minutes until halftime.
 
The Royals delivered a 3-pointer of their own to claw back within two, 25-23, but the Cardinals rattled off four straight points, before settling for a four-point, 29-25 lead at the break.
 
The third quarter was as much a see-saw affair as the first two, with three ties and three lead changes.
 
A 3-pointer by Abby Miler with 6:55 remaining pulled the Royals even, but the Cardinals answered with a 3-pointer of their own by Huisman to put Saint Mary's back in front 38-35. The Royals rally to grab a three-point lead of their own, 41-38, and held a two-point, 51-49 lead after three quarters
 
And then came the fourth quarter—a quarter coach Brent Pollari and the Cardinals would like to forget.
 
Bethel scored the first five points—and seven of the first nine—before Shayley Vesel (Austin, Minn.) drained a 3-opinter to cut the gap to two, 56-54. From there, however, the Royals took control, scoring seven unanswered points to spark a 15-4 run that pushed the BU lead to 13, 71-58 with less than four minutes remaining.
 
And the Cardinals never recovered.
 
Vesel enjoyed a career day in the loss for Saint Mary's, scoring a team- and career-high 23 points—including 19 in the second half. The Cardinal freshman finished 10-for-16 from the field with a pair of 3-pointers and was 1-for-1 from the free throw line in becoming the fourth Saint Mary's player to score 20 or more points in a game this season.
 
Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.) also finished in double figures, netting 12 points for the Cardinals, who shot 38.7 percent from the field (24-for-62) and made just 5 of 13 3-point attempts.
 
The Cardinals (7-7 MIAC, 12-9 overall) are back on the road on Wednesday, traveling to Concordia's Memorial Auditorium in Moorhead, Minn., for a 7 p.m. Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference showdown with the Cobbers.