The St. Lawrence University Women's Basketball team but an early double-digit lead against SUNY Cortland but the Red Dragons came back to post a 74-66 victory Friday night in a non-conference game at Burkman Gymnasium in Canton.
Sophomore Shayna Davner came off the bench and scored seven of her team-leading 17 points in the opening quarter despite playing just 3:30 of the period as the Saints (5-2) opened up a 12 points lead late in the quarter and finished with a 22-15 advantage after the first 10 minutes of action.
The Red Dragons (5-3) battled back in the second quarter outscoring the Saints 23-14 to take a 38-36 lead into the halftime intermission.
In the third quarter, Davner hit a jumper to tie the score at 43-43 and Sarah Thomas scored her only basket of the game for a 48-48 tie with 1:41 left in the period but Cortland scored five of the last six points to take a 53-49 lead into the final quarter.
The Red Dragons did not relinquish the lead in the final 10 minutes leading by as many as eight points. St. Lawrence trimmed the lead down to two points twice as Ellie Gonyeau hit an early jumper and Lauren Quattrocchi drained a 3-pointer at the 7:35 mark in the period but the Saints could not get back to even.
Davner led three Saints into double-digit scoring with her 17 points as Quattrocchi finished with 11 and Cara Waterson added 12 for St. Lawrence. Caroline Dalton was limited to three points but grabbed a team-leading nine rebounds. Quattrocchi added eight assists and two steals.
Both teams shot well from beyond the 3-point line with Cortland connecting on 10-of-24 attempts (42%) while the Saints were good on 12-of-28 long range shots (43%) for the game. Cortland made 10-of-11 free throws while St. Lawrence only attempted six in the game and made just two.
It was the final game of the first semester for the Saints who will host SUNY Brockport at 2 pm January 2 after the holiday break.
