The St. Lawrence women's basketball team scored 36 points in the paint on their way to beating their north country rivals 62-38 in Canton, N.Y. to improve to 8-0 on the season, the program's best start in over 30 years.

Ava McCann led the Saints offense with 14 points, and Olivia Barringer had 13, while nine other players showed up in the scoring column.

The Saints jumped out to an 18-5 lead at the end of the first quarter, shooting 44-percent from the field and holding the Golden Knights to just 11-percent. The Saints were not able to extend the lead in the second quarter, and went into halftime still with a 13-point advantage.

Midway through the third quarter St. Lawrence went on a 13-2 run to push the lead to 27, and would hold on to win 62-38.


"I thought our effort on defense was outstanding today, one of our best of the year," said head coach Dan Roiger. "We really were intense, took care of the boards, and for the most part limited good shot attempts. We had a brief 2-3-minute stretch in the second quarter where we broke down, but otherwise we were really solid. Our offense was much better than it looked because we missed a lot of easy shots today. We could have added a significant number of points had we made a number of layups we missed. Our ball movement was good, our passing was excellent, but we'd miss easy shots so our offense didn't look very good at times. I think we played better offense than our score indicated. The two weeks after Thanksgiving just prior to final exams is historically a stretch for us. I know our players are busy and stressed with studying right now, and in our three league games these past six days, two of which were on the road, we battled and got it done. It wasn't always pretty, but we found a way and I think the team is pleased. We know we have a lot of work to do though, and have a lot of improving to do. We study now for a week, take 10 days off to enjoy Christmas and families, and then get back to work at the end of the year."

Mariah Benavides led the Golden Knights with 8 points, and came down with four rebounds.

The Saints had 18 second chance points off of 17 offensive rebounds. St. Lawrence had 59 total rebounds, Clarkson had 34.

Both teams shot just 3-17 from deep, but the Saints shot 38-percent from the floor and held Clarkson to under 24-percent.

Records: St. Lawrence (8-0, 3-0), Clarkson (0-7, 0-3)
Up next: SUNY Canton on December 31 at 2 p.m. in Burkman Gymnasium