Trey Syroka hit a tough lay to give the Saints the lead, and a Gavin Macaulay layup from a perfect Will Engelhardt pass sealed the win, as the St. Lawrence men's basketball team defeated Vassar 51-50 on Friday night at Burkman Gymnasium.

Vassar scored the first eight points of the night, but the Saints stormed back and tied it at 12 midway through the first half. A few minutes later, St. Lawrence strung together a five-point run, and went into halftime leading 26-23.

With just over a minute to go in the game, Vassar's Kevin McAuliffe hit a 3-pointer to take a 48-47 lead. On the other end of the floor, Trey Syroka beat his man off the dribble, and hit a reverse layup through traffic to put the Saints up one. The Saints got the defensive and faced a full court press with under 20 seconds to play.

Gavin Macaulay ran a post route and Will Engelhardt threw the ball the length of the court, where Macaulay caught it and laid it in to extend the Saints lead to 51-48.

The Saints guarded the arc, and Jack Rothenberg tipped the ball in off of his own rebound to cut the lead to one with under two seconds to play. Engelhardt again found Macaulay in the front court and he dribbled out the clock.


"We played a heck of a game defensively," said coach Marques Charlton. "The guys competed hard against a really good team."

Trent Adamson scored 23 points, shooting 70-percent from the field, and was a perfect 9-for-9 from the charity stripe. Macaulay finished with nine points off of five shots.

Zach Johnson had 12 points and nine boards to lead the Brewers, and Anvi Mustafaj scored 10.

St. Lawrence shot 9-22 in both halves to finish the game with a 40.9 field goal percentage. The Brewers shot 35.8-percent from the floor, and sank eight shots from deep, compared to the Saints' one.

Records: St. Lawrence (11-6, 5-5), Vassar (12-5, 8-3)
Up Next: Bard on January 29 at 4 p.m. in Burkman Gymnasium