The women’s basketball team clinched a share of the MIAC championship with a dominating 93-52 performance against St. Catherine Wednesday night at Schoenecker Arena.

The Tommies (21-1 overall, 19-0 MIAC) extended their winning streak to 21 games and also earned the top seed for the Feb. 21-25 MIAC playoffs for the second year in a row with three games left to play.

“It is not our measuring point,” coach Ruth Sinn said. “Our measuring point is, are we getting better, are we improving every day and are we getting close to our potential?”

St. Thomas played everyone on the roster in the landslide victory over the Wildcats, a team that has not won a game in conference play.

The first points of the game came off of sophomore center Maggie Weiers’ jump shot. St. Thomas held its opponent scoreless until freshman guard/forward Jule Muegge sank two free throws for St. Catherine, ending an 8-0 St. Thomas run.

Sinn said that her team did a solid job of playing up to its “standard” of basketball and more importantly, made its opponent try to match its style of play.

“We didn’t play down. We made sure that we executed and were working on things to get better,” Sinn said. “I thought it was a pretty complete win.”

Freshman forward Anna Smith agreed with Sinn.

“Tonight we did not want to play down to their level,” Smith said. “We wanted to make sure we keep our progress up.”

Smith led the No. 15-ranked Tommies in scoring with 11 points, and the team shot 54 percent on the game and had 53 bench points.

“I think we did better in the first half than in the second half because we let them have a couple of easy baskets (in the second half),” Smith said.

At the end of the second half, sophomore guard Annessa Hicks got a chance to play. Hicks made a 3-pointer, receiving loud cheers from both her teammates and the fans.

Hicks was ecstatic to get some minutes on the court.

“It feels good to get on the court when I can,” Hicks said. “We all just love each other.”

The Tommies play Concordia-Moorhead at 1 p.m. Saturday at home.

Caroline Rode can be reached at rode8318@stthomas.edu.