The St. Lawrence Saints men's basketball team used a strong second half and late free throws to beat the Ithaca 65-60 Friday night in Liberty League action. 

With the victory, the Saints keep pace with Hobart and RPI for a three-way tie in first place in the Liberty League as the push for the postseason begins. 

The win was not a sure-thing for the Saints early on, as they found themselves down at halftime. 

"This was a very hard-fought game, and we were lucky to come out with the win," said Chris Downs, head coach of the Saints.

The Saints began the game with a 7-4 lead but then surrendered a 17-5 run to the Bombers, which put them in the driver's seat. Ithaca built their lead to double digits as they held the Saints scoreless from 8:09 to 1:07 in the first half. Late three's from Tate Kuiper and Carter Story trimmed the Ithaca lead to 30-23 at the break. 

The Saints came out quickly in the second half. With a few stops and two layups by Andrew Cowan, the Saints mounted a 12-4 run to put the score at 35-34 with 14:20 to go, getting their first lead since 7-4. 

After building the lead a little more, the Saints maintained a three-to-six point lead until 2:41 left in the game when the Bombers drained a three-pointer to put the score at 55-54 in favor of the Saints.  

Following more back and forth scoring, the Bombers grabbed a 60-59 lead off a layup with 51 seconds left. An Ithaca foul just eight seconds later put Adam Dudzinski at the line in the double bonus where he cashed in both, giving the lead back to the Saints. 

Ithaca's last two possessions resulted in missed three pointers and Dudzinski and Gavin Macaulay both went 2-for-2 at the free throw stripe to give the Saints their five-point victory. St. Lawrence was 9-15 from the field in the second half and went 20-22 from the charity stripe. 
    
Dudzinski led the way for the Scarlet and Brown, scoring 20 points and going 9-9 from the free throw line. Cowan had 17 points and a team high eight rebounds. 
    
The Saints will head to Schenectady, N.Y. to take on Union Saturday night with a tip-off time set for 4 p.m. The Scarlet and Brown beat the Garnet Chargers 66-45 in their last meeting in Canton.