The St. Lawrence University women's basketball team beat the Tigers of RIT on the road 77-67 on Friday afternoon. The Saints forced six more turnovers and scored 14 more points in the paint.

Senior Olivia Middleton led all scorers with 19 points off an efficient 7-10 shooting, and Jackie Malley added 18 including four 3-pointers.

Kristen Varin had a career-high nine rebounds, including six on the offensive end to extend possessions, along with six points and three assists.

The Saints led 16-8 after the first quarter, and the Tigers clawed back to make it a four-point game. Middleton and Cam Roberts hit back-to-back layups, and in the final seconds Middleton came up with a steal and laid the ball in to go into half-time up 39-29.

After shooting 5-20 in the first half, the Saints abandoned the 3-point shooting in the second half, going 1-5 for most of it, before Malley hit two shots from deep in the waning minutes. Meanwhile, RIT started 0-9 from deep in the first quarter, and proceeded to shoot 12-24 in the final 30 minutes. St. Lawrence led by as many as 19 in the third quarter, but RIT fought back every time the game started to look like a rout, and the final score read 77-67.

"Nice game for us today," said head coach Dan Roiger. "Very mature performance with a lot of energy by our team. Offense was excellent, in part because of good ball control, and we shot the ball well. That's getting closer to what we believe is our potential. Excellent performances today from Olivia Middleton and Kristen Varin. We had a lot of good performances, but those two really stood out."

Emma Waite led the Tigers with 18 points. Erin DiPaola added 15, and Sydney Pearson had a 10-point, 11-rebound double-double.

The Saints got to the line more than RIT, and shot 9-10 in the second half, while RIT hit 5-6.

St. Lawrence improved to 7-6 on the season and 3-4 in the league with the win. RIT fell to 4-11 overall and 2-6 in the Liberty League. The Saints look to reach .500 in the league tomorrow at William Smith, with the tip-off scheduled for 2 p.m.