The St. Lawrence University men's basketball team defeated RPI 56-53 on Friday night in Burkman Gymnasium to move to the second seed in the Liberty League standings.

Carter Storey continued his hot shooting and hit three shots from beyond the arc and Trey Syroka matched his career-high five steals to lead the Saints on the defensive end.

The Saints trailed by two with a less than two minutes left in the first half, Storey hit a corner three, which Trent Adamson followed with consecutive buckets lead 24-22. Storey stole the subsequent inbound pass and hit the buzzer-beater three to give St. Lawrence a five-point cushion at the break.

The Saints extended their lead to as much as 15-points at several points in the second half. Gavin Macaulay hit a pair of free throws with a minute left to put the Scarlet and Brown up by nine, which was enough to put the Engineers away despite them scoring on their final four possessions.
 

"Defensively we played great," said head coach Chris Downs. "This sets up a good one for Saturday."

Will Rubin and Jonny Angbazo each scored a dozen to lead the Engineer offense.

Will Engelhardt had 11 points and five assists on the offensive end and grabbed four defensive rebounds. Adamson finished with 10 on 5-7 shooting and had three blocks. In addition to Syroka's five steals, he had six assists, five points and three boards.

St. Lawrence shot 46.5-percent against an RPI team that holds teams to under 39-percent. The Engineers connected on 41.5-percent of their shots. The Saints were out-rebounded 38-27, but got to the line 13 more times.

With the win, St. Lawrence improves to 14-7 on the season and 10-5 in the conference. RPI drops to 15-7, and 9-6 in the league for a four-way tie for third place.

The Saints host Ithaca on February 11^th at 4 p.m. for a clash of the top-two seeds in the Liberty League.