ST. PETER, Minn. – The shorthanded St. Olaf College women's basketball team fell, 79-53, to Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play on Wednesday evening at Gus Young Court.

Playing with seven available student-athletes due to injury and illness, St. Olaf (5-7, 0-5 MIAC) got a second consecutive big game offensively from Erin Schauer, as the first year tallied a game-high 28 points in the loss. Gustavus (7-5, 3-2 MIAC) got points from 12 different Gusties and shot 47.8 percent (32-for-67) overall in the win.

After scoring 29 points on Saturday at Carleton College and earning MIAC Offensive Player of the Week honors, Schauer had 28 more on a night where she shot 9-for-18 from the field, 5-for-9 from three-point range, and 5-for-5 at the free-throw line. Sophomores Grace Gertner and Glory Johanson added nine points apiece, while junior Joy Brandenstein had seven. Gertner had five rebounds and a team-high five assists in addition to her nine points.

Whitley Ronn led three Gusties in double figures with 13 points and six rebounds in 14 minutes. Kendyl Queensland hit all three of her three-pointers while scoring 11 off the bench, while Ella Peters had 12 points and eight rebounds. Gustavus got 35 points from its bench and 44 points in the paint in the win.

The Gusties surged out to a 10-0 start before Schauer got the Oles on the board with a three-pointer 3:44 into the opening quarter. The three-pointers was part of a 6-0 run that got St. Olaf's deficit down to seven, but that was the closest margin for the remainder of the game. Another three-pointer by Schauer with 1:08 to go in the quarter made it a 21-13 game before Bella Sutch hit a layup in the final minute to give the Gusties a 23-13 lead after 10 minutes.

Gustavus pushed its lead to 40-22 at halftime after outscoring the Oles by a 17-9 margin in the second quarter. Led by 13 points in the quarter from Schauer, St. Olaf was outscored by just a 25-21 margin in the third, as Schauer was 3-for-3 from the field, 2-for-2 from behind the arc, and 5-for-5 at the free-throw line in the quarter. The Gusties shot 10-for-15 (66.7 percent) as a team in the third before cooling off in the fourth.

St. Olaf will return home for the first time in three weeks for a meeting with the College of St. Scholastica at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10.