MENOMINEE, WIS. – The St. Catherine University basketball team has found quite a bit of offensive success early this 2017-18 season. Under the guidance of head coach Don Mulhern, St. Kate's has scored at least 68 points in its first three games of the season. Unfortunately, the Wildcats suffered a bit of a set back in nonconference play, falling to the University of Wisconsin-Stout by a final score of 67-56.

UW-Stout stifled St. Kate's red-hot offense Sunday afternoon, as the Blue Devils held the Wildcats to their lowest point total of the season. In fact, St. Kate's scored just 25 points in the first half of competition, the lowest total for the team this season, and shot 32% from the floor in 40 minutes of play.

Still, the Wildcats kept things close in the first quarter of play and even held a six-point lead in the early stages of the second. After a strong shooting performance to end the first quarter, St. Kate's held a 22-16 lead over the Blue Devils in the second quarter. Unfortunately, the Wildcats offense went cold and UW-Stout got hot, as it outscored St. Kate's 18-10 in the second quarter, resulting in a 34-25 Blue Devil lead at the half.

The Wildcats tried to close the gap in the third quarter, as Alexis Garcia (Minnetonka, Minn. / Hopkins) kicked things off by hitting a huge three-pointer just second in. Leading-scorer Danica Cambrice (St. Paul, Minn. / St. Croix Lutheran) then knocked down two free throws and Jackie Radford (St. Paul, Minn. / Cretin-Derham Hall) hit a big layup, cutting Stout's lead to 34-32 in the early stages of the quarter.

Unfortunately, the Blue Devils answered by going on a run of their own, scoring four unanswered points to regain a 38-32 lead over the Wildcats. While St. Kate's managed to cut the lead again, it was never quite able to take one of its own, and eventually Stout led by as many as eight points, jumping ahead 44-36 on a layup by Brianna Banks. First year Morgan Kurth (Hutchinson, Minn. / Hutchinson) then took the team on her shoulders, scoring three of her 10 points on the day to get the Wildcats within four again.

Still, Kurth's scoring run wasn't enough to overcome defensive mistakes, and Stout held a 46-39 lead after three quarters of play. The Wildcats were able to cut the lead to two points again early in the fourth, as Audra Clark (Kenyon, Minn. / Kenyon-Wanamingo) and Kurth scored five points to cut the Blue Devils lead to 51-49. That was the closest St. Kate's would come to tying the game, as it was outscored by UW-Stout 18-12 in the quarter and 67-56 during the game.

Cambrice was the team's leading scorer, as she tallied a career-high 22 points in 40 minutes of play. Radford was the leading rebounder with 10 total, while Kurth scored in double-digits for the first time in her career as a Wildcat with 10 points.

With the loss, St. Kate's overall record falls to 2-2. The Wildcats will return to the court Tuesday when they take on Northland College at 7 p.m. in Ashland, Wisconsin.