St. Bonifacius, Minn. - Crown College returned to action on Monday night against the St. Mary's University Cardinals.  Last year, Crown lost to the Cardinals 86-81 in an overtime thriller.  This year's game would not be quite as close as the Cardinals used exceptional shooting from the floor to beat Crown 81-64.

The first half saw Crown dig themselves a 16 point deficit which they cut to eight on a three pointer by Garrett Bigej before the Cardinals closed out the half to be up by 16.  The second half saw more back and forth action as Crown would cut the deficit to 11 and 12 points multiple times, but they could never get any closer than that.

The Cardinals shot 57.9% from the field as five players reached double figures.  Crown shot 34.0% by comparison and was led by freshman post Austin VanDerHeyden who posted another double double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Crown's next game is Wednesday, January 7th against Carleton College.