The St. Lawrence women's basketball team fell to Vassar for their second loss of the season Friday night in Burkman Gymnasium.

Ava McCann hit six 3-pointers on her way to a 20-point performance, but the Brewers outscored the Saints 17-6 in the final 10 minutes to take the win 74-61.

Vassar scored 11 straight points midway through the first quarter to take the lead, and at the first break were ahead 18-13.

McCann tied the game at 24 when she hit a transition 3-pointer, and a few minutes later hit another to give the Saints their first lead of the second quarter at 33-31. The Brewers were able to respond and went into halftime up 37-35.

Out of the halftime break, Dylan Watkiss took the ball straight to the rim and tied the game at 37, but Vassar's Sarah Gillooly went on a 6-0 run all by herself and the Brewers jumped out to another lead. St. Lawrence was able to keep it close, and the period finished with the Brewers up 57-55.

The Saints exchanged a few buckets to open the final quarter, but St. Lawrence went 0-8 from the field in the final eight and a half minutes of the game, and Vassar secured the win 47-61.


"Vassar is a really good team that presents a lot of challenges to guard," said head coach Dan Roiger. "I actually though we defended pretty well overall, but over the course of the game we are going to break down on certain possessions and they make you pay when you do. We had three bad stretches defensively. In the first quarter we fueled their offense with six turnovers in the first six minutes. Then in the third quarter we gave up scores on five of their first six possessions. Finally, we gave up three triples in a row to start the fourth quarter and followed it with fouling a 3-point shooter and they scored 11 points in four possessions. We never recovered after that final run and Vassar earned a tough fought game."

Gillooly led all scorers with 25 points in 37 minutes and her teammate Julia Harvey contributed 18 points. Emily Tincher had seven points, seven blocks, and five rebounds.

McCann's 20 led the Saints, and Olivia Middleton added a baker's dozen and Watkiss finished with 10. Nicole Jeffrey had a career-high 14 rebounds to go along with her nine points.

"I thought we played hard, but we needed to bring an A game in shooting and reducing our turnovers and we didn't," Roiger added. "We shot poorly, our lowest percentage of the season, and we pretty much hit our season average in turnovers and that is just not good enough against a high quality team like Vassar. Their advantage is speed and shooting from the arc, and ours is inside game but we weren't able to take advantage of that tonight. We'll try to bounce back tomorrow against Bard and get back on the winning track."

Records: St. Lawrence (15-2, 9-2), Vassar (13-4, 10-1)
Up Next: Bard on January 29 at 2 p.m. in Burkman Gymnasium