SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The No. 20 Skidmore College men's basketball team started with a flurry from 3-point range, leading the whole way of a dominating 81-56 victory against St. Lawrence, in the Liberty League opener for both teams Friday night at the Williamson Sports Center.
 
Skidmore, ranked 20^th in the latest D3hoops.com national polls, remains undefeated at 5-0 overall. St. Lawrence falls to 1-4.
 
The Thoroughbreds were locked and loaded from deep to begin the game, hitting six of their first seven treys from the field to jump out to a 20-3 lead. After St. Lawrence broke the run with a basket, The Thoroughbreds answered with a jumper by Dakpe Yiljep and another trey by Edvinas Rupkus, stretching the lead to a commanding 20 points, at 25-5. Skidmore kept the lead around 20 for the remainder of the half, leading by 18, at 43-25 at halftime. The Thoroughbreds shot a scorching 11-for-21 (52.4%) from deep in the first half, and shot 50 percent from the field.
 
The pace of the game slowed to a crawl in the second half, with the Saints trying to claw back into it. St. Lawrence was able to get the deficit to as small as 12, 49-37, at the 13:58 mark. A few possessions later, Chase Ta broke through the Saints' 2-3 zone, finding a cutting Pat Gallagher for the layup to get the lead back up to 14. On the very next possession, Ta and Gallagher connected again for the layup to get it to 16, and Gallagher then fed Rupkus with the running layup at the 12:35 mark to stretch the lead back to 18, at 55-37.
 
The Thoroughbreds would begin to pull away in the tail end of the game. Noah Meren would come off the bench and made an instant impact, hanging in the air for the nifty layup to push the lead to 24, then finding Martin Bedulskij for the easy layup on the next possession to get the lead to 26. A free throw by Meren with 2:28 left gave the Thoroughbreds its biggest lead of the game at 27, 78-51.
 
"I thought the guys came ready to play tonight," said head coach Joe Burke. "We have tremendous respect for St Lawrence so it was easy for me to get their attention this week.
It was probably one of our better defensive games so far this year. We didn't have a lot of time to put in the game plan but the guys were locked in and did a really good job of executing on both ends. We will enjoy it for a couple hours and then we need to get ready for a fight from Clarkson tomorrow. We have to be prepared to take everyone's best punch."
 
Rupkus had another solid all-around game, finishing with 24 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, and three steals. Yiljep came out firing in the first half, finishing with 19 points on 8-for-11 shooting from the field, adding two assists and two steals. Gallagher finished with 13 points off the bench. Ta led with nine assists, adding six rebounds and three steals.
 
Ben Crawford led the Saints with 11 points and seven rebounds.
 
The Thoroughbreds wrap up the weekend against Clarkson on Saturday, with tip-off scheduled for 4 p.m.