Staff photo by Ari Selvey Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Morgan Mathiowetz (3) sizes up Cedar Mountain’s Aubrey Steffl (2) during a Tomahawk-Valley Conference, Tomahawk Division girls basketball game Friday at Cedar Mountain High School.

MORGAN — Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s continued its dominant start to the season with an 83-46 win over Cedar Mountain Friday in a Tomahawk-Valley Conference, Tomahawk Division girls basketball game.

The Knights improved to 9-0, 6-0 in conference and collected their 14th consecutive win over the Cougars. St. Mary’s has won its nine games by an average of 44.6 points, with the closest game being a 22-point victory in the season opener against Class AA Waterville-Elysian-Morristown. Fourth-ranked St. Mary’s proved it’s among the best in Minnesota with a wire-to-wire win over the eight-win Cougars.

“I think it means a lot,” St. Mary’s head coach Bruce Woitas said of the big win. “Especially since we were on a long break. We haven’t played since December 20, so we had a long break. I thought we came out of the first half sort of flatish, but still we took a 15-point lead in the first half.

“In the second half I thought we ran our offense more effectively with some of our sets and the flow of our offense improved. Then suddenly, boom, we’re up by 30. We have a number of players that can get it done offensively for us, and when you have that, you don’t have to rely on that one person all the time, it’s a big benefit for our team.”

Morgan Mathiowetz once again took the lead for the Knights, scoring 34 points with nine rebounds and seven assists. Mathiowetz said the Cougars represented a strong team in the conference that the Knights were still able to play their game against.

“Cedar Mountain’s a good team,” she said. “They play well, they play hard, they’re guard-heavy. It’s important for us to know our matchups and just be smart during the game and know our strengths and run with them. It was a good team win and now we know where we are, and we can keep getting better throughout the season and hopefully see them again and get another dub.”

Also for St. Mary’s, Brynne Ibberson had 22 points, five rebounds and five steals, while Olivia Schieffert had 10 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds.

While St. Mary’s was strong defensively throughout the game, Cedar Mountain’s Aubrey Steffl still managed to earn her third triple-double of the season with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Grace Hamre had 9 points, three rebounds and two steals, while Brooklyn Diehn had 8 points and three rebounds.

The Knights really kicked into action in the second half, outscoring the Cougars 50-23 to close out the game. Defense was key for St. Mary’s, frustrating Cedar Mountain’s offense and leading to transition opportunities for the Knights.

“That was big,” Woitas said. “We try to emphasize defense a lot in practice, and in the first half we weren’t doing a very good job of that either, but in the second half that opened up, and it also opened up our transition where we got some steals and some easy baskets on the other end as well.”

St. Marys’ passing was also strong in the game, with Mathiowetz either dishing or receiving great passes under the basket to lead to easy points.

“I feel like certain teams are going to key in on certain players throughout the game,” Mathiowetz said. “We know all of us can score, so we just find each other every time we can. We have a lot of really good players that are taught really well and move off of each other really well, so just finding each other and putting the ball into the hoop has been really important to us.”

St. Mary’s took a 9-2 lead early, with buckets from Ibberson and Mathiowetz leading the way. Cedar Mountain got the game back to 14-8 with a mid-range jumper from Diehn and a layup from Miley Renville, but the Knights got the lead out to 32-17 after a steal-and-score from Mathiowetz. After the bucket, a flurry of 3-pointers from both teams dropped, with Ibberson, Hamre, St. Marys’ Kiara Murphy and Steffl all hitting a shot from distance before half to make the score 38-23.

A 3-pointer from Hamre and a pair of free throws from Cedar Mountain’s Kendra Erickson cut the lead down to 41-28, but St. Mary’s went on a 6-2 run to extend the lead out to 47-30. St. Mary’s continued to push, going up by as much as 80-40 as a running clock was implemented. Subs entered soon after as the Knights took home the win.

With a win to start the new year, Mathiowetz and the Knights know that the season they’ve been having is just the beginning.

“It’s super exciting,” Mathiowetz said. “It’s been a goal all season to play every game and want to win the whole time, and being able to get back to the game we lost last year [section semifinals] and hopefully win and get a shot at the state tournament. It’s been really exciting for us and it’s been a goal for us since we were little kids and we’ve always been playing together. It’s been really fun.”

St. Mary’s hosts Nicollet on Monday. Cedar Mountain (8-4, 3-3) travels to New Ulm Cathedral on Tuesday.