Ava Perry leads a Gustavus fastbreak.
The Gustavus women’s basketball team jumped out to a 10-0 lead and never looked back on its way to a convincing 83-71 win over St. Catherine at Gus Young Court in St. Peter on Saturday afternoon. Molly Mathiowetz led a balanced Gustavus scoring attack with 13 points. The Gusties improve to 15-3 overall and 13-2 in the MIAC.
Gustavus got some help from Bethel on Saturday as the Royals knocked off Concordia 50-48 in Moorhead knocking the Cobbers out of a first place tie with Gusties. Gustavus is now alone in first place on the league standings with a 13-2 record followed by Concordia and St. Ben’s at 12-3 (Macalester could also end up at 12-3, however its game with St. Thomas was in progress at the time this story was written).
Coleen Ruane pressures St. Kate's guard Quinn Halverson
Gustavus broke open a tight game with a 24-5 run in the final six minutes of the first half. The Gusties led by 24, 53-29 at halftime.
St. Kate’s used a 12-1 run to start the second half to cut the lead to 13 points at 54-30 with 17:12 left to play. The Gusties quickly pushed the lead back to 19 points and the Wildcats never got closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
Gustavus had very balanced scoring against St. Kate’s as Mathiowetz tallied 13 points followed by Katie Layman and Ava Perry with 12 each, and Julia Schultz with 10. The Gusties shot 58.3 percent from the field (35-60) and outrebounded the Wildcats 33-20.
Gustavus will travel to Minneapolis to face Augsburg on Monday night at 7:30 pm.