Skidmore's stingy defense shut down the St. Lawrence women's basketball team as the Saints fell 54-38 at home versus the Thoroughbreds Friday night in Canton, N.Y. 

In the loss, the Saints fell to 11-13 overall with a 9-8 Liberty League mark in their final game before senior day. The loss places the Scarlet and Brown in a tie with Union for fourth place in the league with one regular season game remaining. 

Should the Saints win that game, a Saturday contest versus Skidmore, they will secure home court advantage in the Liberty League's first playoff round. A loss would send them on the road to Union for a round one game.

"That's one of the best defensive teams our league has produced in years," said Saints head coach Dan Roiger of second-place Skimore, who has only lost two conference games all year. " Our defense played well overall, but we made some mistakes on the perimeter and they made four triples against us and that's enough against a good team to make it difficult to beat."

Skidmore began the game on an 11-3 run, but the Saints trimmed the lead to 13-11 to conclude the first quarter. After more back-and-forth action in the first half, the Saints trailed 20-17 with 3:53 left in the break. However, the Thoroughbreds scored five of the last six points to take a 25-18 lead into the locker room. Elizabeth Flynn had 12 points while Norah Niesz had five in the first half.  

With the score at 30-28 at the 4:29 mark in the third quarter, Skidmore went on an extended 20-3 run to put the game out of reach with 4:17 to go. The Saints managed only ten points in the last 14 minutes in their defeat. 



In the loss, Flynn had yet another double-double with 14 points and 10 boards. Norah Nietz also had eight points for the Saints. 

The Saints will cap off the regular season Saturday at 2 p.m. with senior day against RPI, in a matchup with playoff implications.