Lilien Benakova scored the Saints first and Alexia Côté closed the gap to one, but the 10th-ranked Cornell Big Red defeated the St. Lawrence University women's hockey team 5-2 on Saturday afternoon in Ithaca, N.Y.

Cornell started out hot, building a 2-0 lead by the end of the first period.

The first came off the stick of Sarah MacEachern as her shot from the point made it through traffic and past Emma-Sofie Nordström for the 1-0 lead at the four-minute mark. The second goal came from Shannon Pearson, as she collected a rebound that went top corner off an initial shot from Piper Grober with 10:57 to play.

After the first 20 minutes, Cornell held onto their 2-0 lead and led 11-9 in shots on goal.

With 8:39 to play in the second, Cornell challenged a previous scoring attempt after a scramble in front of the St. Lawrence goal. Nordström made two big stops, but a shot from Karel Prefontaine was ruled to have crossed the line, giving the Big Red a 3-0 lead.

Just a little over a minute later, Brooke Mulvihill backhanded the puck out of the Saints' zone and it was picked up by Benakova, who beat the blocker of Annelies Bergmann for her first and the Saints first short-handed goal of the season to make it 3-1.

The Saints looked to rebound to start the third period, as Côté scored her third goal of the season. The Cornell defense attempted to clear the zone and the puck went straight to the stick of Côté, who fired a shot glove side to close the gap to one and make it 3-2. Rylan Haslam assisted on the play. 

Prefontaine tallied her second of the game just 24 seconds later to give the Big Red back their two-goal buffer.

With 3:05 to play in the third, Nordström headed to the bench giving the Saints' an extra attacker. At 1:11, the Big Red were sent to the penalty box and the Saints increased their advantage to 6-on-4, but a turnover in the neutral zone, allowed Cornell's Piper Grober to add on a short-handed empty netter for the 5-2 final.

"After the first 10 minutes we played a game that we could have easily come out on top," said head coach Chris Wells. "Even with our loss today we took another step towards being ready to play our best at the end of the season. We had some real good kills and efforts on pucks that will translate as we continue to get back into our groove."

Nordström stopped 32 shots for the Scarlet and Brown, while Bergmann finished with 22.

Cornell outshot the Saints 68-43 and finished with a 37-23 advantage in shots on goal. The Big Red finished 1-for-5 on the power play, while the Saints went 0-for-2. St. Lawrence blocked 18 shots to the Big Red's eight.

With the loss, the Saints fell to 7-14-2 overall and 4-7-0 in league play, while Cornell improves to 11-6-2 and 7-4-1.

"Tough couple games to play right off the New Year, but they have us better prepared for the games to come," Wells added. "We have shown all the pieces that are necessary to play our best. Getting them all together in one game is the goal!"

St. Lawrence will return to Appleton Arena for a three-game home stand, as they host Union and RPI on January 16-17, before the final regular season meeting of the Route 11 rivalry against Clarkson on Tuesday, January 20.