BY JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

ST. PETER - Coaches will tell you that the most important minutes of a basketball game are the first four minutes of the first quarter and the first four minutes of the start of the second half.

Friday night, those eight minutes cost MVL a potential big win.

Shawn Seebach scored 14 and Megan Vogel added 13 as St. Peter held off Minnesota Valley Lutheran 44-40 to win the St. Peter Girl's Invitational Basketball Tournament.

Jessica Merseth led the Chargers with a game-high 25 points.

" I thought that it was an exciting game between two top teams in our section," said MVL coach Dave Biedenbender. "It is a tough game to lose - no one wants to lose - but it gives us a good gauge of where we are in the section and I think that we will be able to compete down the road."

And if not for those eight minutes, when the Chargers were outscored 15-4, MVL may well have handed St. Peter their first loss after seven straight wins.

"I think that if we could have avoided those mistakes (in the first and third quarter) and turnovers where we just threw the ball to them, I think that we would have probably won the game," commented Biedenbender. "We had those turnovers and several more (23 turnovers in the game) - we cannot win the game like that."

Especially if those turnovers result in points for the other team.

St. Peter held a 23-22 halftime lead and it seemed like momentum was on the side of the Chargers as they had outscored the Saints 5-2 to end the first half on a basket by Leah Moran and three free throws from Jessica Merseth. A pressing MVL defense had also held the Saints to a poor 2-of-11 from the field in that quarter.

But St. Peter (8-0) quickly regained momentum forcing two Charger turnovers in the first 40 seconds and turning then into points and a 26-22 lead before Jessica Merseth hit a bucket off a pass from Danielle Kramer. MVL would slide back to within 30-28 on back-to-back hoops from Merseth with 1:50 left in the third quarter before turnovers again haunted MVL.

Shawn Seebach turned two steals into four points and a 34-28 lead.

Merseth continued to hold the Chargers in the game in the fourth quarter with a putback basket that brought MVL to within 36-34 with 5:15 left in the game.

"She (Merseth) had a nice game,"Biedenbender said. "Every time that she gets the ball she had a few people on her but yet she was able to work her way through for some hoops. She also did a nice job of passing the ball out when she didn't have an open shot and we need her to do that."

But a Seebach basket and a Megan Vogel off a bad pass by the Chargers put the Saints up 40-34 with less than four minutes left in the game.

Merseth, who accounted for 12 of MVL's 18 second half points, cut the lead to 30-28 before two more turnovers resulted in four big St. Peter points.

"I would have liked to see better scoring balance by us," said Biedenbender as no other Charger player had more than four points to aid Merseth's 25 points. "This year, we have generally had three or four players close to double figures. We could have used some support from from other areas."

After being tied at 2-2, the Saints ran off nine straight points to assume a comfortable 11-2 lead before Merseth took a bounce pass from Rebecca Flatebo for a basket and Flatebo turned a three-point play to cut the lead to 11-7 before Merseth canned two jumpers 22 seconds apart to pull MVL to within 16-13 at the first break.

A Merseth bucket to open the second quarter saw MVL within 16-15 with less than 10 seconds gone.

"I knew that when we were down 11-2 early that I was not going to panic," Biedenbender said. "I knew that they could come back - it just took some good, solid defense. If we start it with defense, we can get back into the game and that is pretty much what it was. But we need to avoid those mistakes."

Chargers fall to St. Peter, take second in tournament