SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Skidmore College women's basketball team held off a late charge by St. Lawrence, pulling off a narrow 63-60 victory in the Liberty League opener for both teams at the Williamson Sports Center Friday evening.
 
The Thoroughbreds win their second straight game to improve to 2-2 overall, winning the league opener for the fourth straight year. St. Lawrence falls to 2-2 and 0-1 in league play.
 
After a fairly even first quarter, the Thoroughbreds put the clamps on the Saints on both ends of the court. On defense, Skidmore held the visitors to just 18.5 percent shooting in the first 20 minutes.  On offense, a 12-0 run in the first 3:40, capped off by a traditional three-point play by Veronica Moceri, gave the Thoroughbreds a solid 23-8 lead. With seven seconds until halftime, Ari Fustini found Taylor Ong in the paint for a smooth layup to send the Thoroughbreds into the locker rooms with the lead at 31-14.
 
Skidmore continued to pour it on in the third quarter. A quick 7-0 run by the Thoroughbreds stretched the lead to its largest, at 43-21 with 5:43 to go in the stanza. St. Lawrence answered with a flurry, led by the hot shooting of Kaelyn Kohlasch. The guard scored the first 11 points of a 16-3 run to end the quarter, capped by a trey with eight seconds remaining to get the game under double digits. It was more of the same to begin the fourth quarter, as a Kohlasch 3-pointer gave the Saints its first lead of the second half, at 49-48 with 7:22 to go in regulation.
 
Undeterred, Kelly Donnelly pulled up for a pair of midrange shots on the other end to retake the lead for the Thoroughbreds. St. Lawrence answered with a 3-pointer by Jenny Scudder, tying the game at 52. Skidmore would respond with haymakers of their own, in the form of a 6-0 run with baskets coming from Moceri and Donnelly. The Saints would respond again via the 3-point shot, getting baskets from Scudder and Kohlasch, tying the game at 58 with 2:48 remaining.
 
With the game under the two-minute mark, Donnelly made the Saints pay for a turnover with a layup in the paint, giving Skidmore a 60-58 lead. Then, with 54 seconds left, Fustini hit the final dagger for the Thoroughbreds, nailing a 3-pointer from the wing to stretch the advantage to five, at 63-58. On the other end, Katie Frederick got to the line and made a pair of free throws to reduce the deficit to three. After a Skidmore miss, the Saints had the ball with eight seconds left. A solid defensive effort by the Thoroughbreds coming out of the timeout proved to be the difference, as Kohlasch's chance from beyond the arc fell short.
 
"This was a great win for us tonight at home," said head coach Darren Bennett. "All wins can bring energy, but that first conference game and a win does it really well.  We will continue to work on taking care of the ball; when we started taking care of the ball in the second quarter we were able to get up shots and they were falling.  Overall we improved tonight as an entire unit, we had to learn how to fight off an approaching bull and we did that for what seemed like the entire second half. St. Lawrence is a really good team on both ends of the floor and are very balanced with a great inside game and tremendous perimeter players. We beat a really good team tonight."
 
After a slow start, Donnelly made 8 of her last 11 shots from the field to finish with a season-high 21 points, adding a pair of blocks. Moceri had a strong performance as well, finishing with 19 points, five assists, and two steals. Fustini made all three of her 3-pointers to finish with nine points and Caite Opfer finished with a team-best seven rebounds and eight points.
 
Kohlasch finished with a game-high 26 points, including 23 in the second half, to lead the Saints.
 
Skidmore will finish the weekend with a visit from Clarkson on Saturday, at 2 p.m.