The No. 4 seeded St. Lawrence University men's basketball team erased a double-digit point gap late in the game, but were fended off by the Liberty League's highest seed in Friday night's semifinal.

They fell in a nailbiter, 62-58, at Rensselaer to end their 2025-26 season after returning to the conference semifinal. They head to the offseason with an overall record of 14-13, after a conference regular season mark of 11-7 got them home court advantage in the LL first round.

Rensselaer went up early with a three-ball and a pair of layups, but the lead was traded to St. Lawrence as the Scarlet and Brown went up 7-6 on a Jlin Brown layup just under four minutes into the opening half. From there, RPI took the lead back on a PJ Scalisi three-ball, and went up by 10. The Saints battled back with an 11-3 run over a three minute span beginning at the 7:05 mark, making it a one-point game at 25-24, but RPI had a 10-point lead again by halftime.

The score remained relatively similar as teams traded points through the opening 10 minutes of the second half, with St. Lawrence entering the final six minutes of the game down 50-42, when they began to tighten the gap. Three first-years came up big, with Aidan Phelan draining a layup, Tommy McMahon forcing a turnover on the ensuing possession, and Brown adding another layup to make it a four-point game with plenty of time on the clock.

After a Billy Feeks three-pointer momentarily gave the Engineers a seven-point cushion, Adam Dudzinski answered with back-to-back threes to make it a one-point game at 55-54. After a few more RPI points, Saints longtime head coach Chris Downs called a timeout at the 36-second mark with the score at 60-58.

Following a charge called against St. Lawrence with 12 seconds remaining, the Engineers made a foul shot to give them a three-point lead, then one final drained free throw gave them a two-possession lead late and sealed the win. That sent Rensselaer to Sunday's conference championship game and ended the Saints' season.

It was a balanced scoring effort for the Saints, with Dan Anderson leading the way with 17 points. Dudzinski followed him up with 15 points in the final collegiate appearance for the 1,000-point scorer, and Brown was one shy of his career high at 12 points. That made it three Saints in double figures, and Phelan was just one away from joining them – he dropped nine points.