Dan Anderson had a career-high 24 points off of 9-17 shooting and the St. Lawrence University men's basketball team nearly erased a 16-point deficit in the final three minutes and change, but ultimately fell 83-77 to the Clarkson Golden Knights Friday night in Potsdam, N.Y. 

With the loss, St. Lawrence's overall record sits at 7-3 , but they now have fallen to 1-3 in conference play entering a long stretch of league action moving forward. 

"It is disappointing for us to not come away with a result tonight," said Saints head coach Chris Downs. "The next few weeks will be critical for us. We'll now turn our attention to this weekend's games."

The first ten minutes of the game was back-and-forth with the Saints largest lead at one point and the Golden Knights never gaining more than a three point lead. With Clarkson up 14-11, Alexi Twahili drilled a pair of threes and the Saints got out to a 17-14 lead, their largest of the game.

A few minutes later, Twahili hit another from behind the arc and the Saints were out in front 27-19 with 7:39 remaining in the first half. After twenty minutes, the Saints were leading 36-30 with Twahili scoring nine points and Dan Anderson with eight. 

The Clarkson offense was prolific to start the second half and with 15:15, the home team was leading 44-40 thanks to a 14-4 run. The strong shooting from the Golden Knights didn't end there and after an 11-0 run, Clarkson was up 60-45 with 11 minutes to go. The Saints got within reach after scoring 11 straight points with Dudzinski having six of these. Anderson had the other five.  This run made the game 65-58 with 6:40 left.

After Clarkson opened up a 16-point lead with 3:15 remaining, the Saints were able to storm back with a 13-0 run in 2-and-a-half minutes by forcing turnovers, and benefitted from some missed one-and-ones at the line from Clarkson. Dan Anderson scored eight points in this run. With the game now 79-76 with under a minute left, Clarkson was able to make free throws and get stops and the comeback fell short and the Saints fell 83-77. 

Dudzinski also ended the game in double figures with 17 points and led the team with eight rebounds while Twahili had a career-high nine points, all in the first half. Andrew Cowan had a season-high four blocks. 

The Saints will return home next weekend where on Friday, January 10, they will take on the Vassar Brewers at 7:30 p.m.