The St. Lawrence women's basketball team's senior class has had a long and winding journey to this year's Liberty League championship weekend. It included an 8-17 season three years ago, a 30-point loss to Vassar in the tournament semifinals in 2020, and a season last year that, for the senior class at least, never happened.
 
The No. 3-seeded Saints will be back in familiar territory this weekend, facing second-seeded Vassar in the Liberty League tournament semifinals at Ithaca College on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. The winner will face the winner of the other semifinal game between Ithaca and Union on Sunday at 2 p.m.
 
The Saints split their two meetings with the Brewers during the regular season, winning 99-81 in Poughkeepsie before falling74-61 at Burkman Gymnasium four weeks ago.
 
Katie Frederick, who was originally part of the Class of 2021 but took a year off last year while interning for a Congresswoman in Washington, D.C. and working in a school, is a facing Vassar for the 10^th time in her career.
 
 "It's been incredible getting to join (this senior class)," said Frederick. "If you had told us at the end of their freshman year and my sophomore year when we were 8-17 that we'd be in a 21-4 season going into the semifinals, I wouldn't have believed it."
 
The Saints bring five dedicated seniors with them to the semifinals including Frederick, Gunnhildur Atladottir, Ava McCann, Erin Kumler, and Dylan Watkiss. It's the largest senior class Dan Roiger has had in 18 years as a head coach, including the last 13 at St. Lawrence.
 
"These (seniors) had a tough freshman year, but I knew that they were good," said Roiger. "When you have good freshmen playing against good seniors, the seniors are going to win, but I knew they wouldn't be freshmen forever. My question was if they'd have the mental toughness to stick with it, see past some failures, and use it to grow. And they have."
 
While Frederick took the year off from St. Lawrence, other seniors missed the nine-game 2020-21 season, which consisted of seven games vs. Clarkson and two vs. SUNY Canton as they were taking classes remotely or were enrolled in the fall and summer sessions. The opportunity to return and play together has brought renewed clarity and focus to the team's mission to win a Liberty League Championship and earn the league's automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
 
When asked how they would maintain this mindset, McCann said, "Bringing energy and starting off the game strong, but also finishing it strong. Just keeping the momentum going the whole game is something we've been thinking about a lot."
 
"It's pretty special to have a season like this having grown up together," said Watkiss. "Not having a season last year made me really grateful for the opportunity to have one this year, and that has sparked the joy of this season and is part of why we're doing so well."
 
"If there was ever a time to truly make a run for it, I feel like it's this year," said Altadottir, "Coming back (this year) everyone knew that we had the potential to be so successful and came into the season ready to go and ready to win. I hope that mindset carries into this weekend for us."
 
"This group means a lot to me; they're very resilient," said Roiger. "I hope that our younger players learn from this group. You want your freshmen and sophomores to see what these seniors do day after day and hope that they take on those habits. That would be the legacy that they leave."
 
The Liberty League semifinal and championship games will be live streamed by ICTV.