The St. Lawrence University women's hockey team was unable to rally from a 3-0 deficit on Friday afternoon against nationally-ranked No. 1 Cornell in Ithaca, NY. Junior Josee Belanger scored her first collegiate goal in the contest, but the Big Red was able to earn the ECAC Hockey victory, 3-1.

The loss snapped the Saints' three-game win streak, and moved to team to 7-7-2 (3-3-0) on the season. Meanwhile, Cornell continues to roll, picking up its eighth straight victory.

"We gave a great effort against the number one team in the country," said St. Lawrence head coach Chris Wells. "We saw some players really step up their game, which gave us enough chances to get the result we wanted. Cornell is a fun team to play against and this outing was no exception."

The Big Red came out of the game in impressive fashion, outshooting the Saints 15-4 in the first period. The home team's efforts led to back-to-back goals only 1:13 apart to take a 2-0 lead into intermission. Rebecca Johnston's first goal of the game came at 8:12, when the puck went off of her leg and behind graduate student Maxie Weisz. Assists on the goal went to Jess Campbell and Laura Fortino.

Fortino then followed at 9:25 when she one-timed a shot through traffic that beat Weisz, putting Cornell up by two. Karlee Overguard and Lauriane Rougeau assisted on what proved to be the game-winning goal.

Johnston would tack on an insurance tally a mere 13 seconds into the second period right off the opening draw, as she crashed the net and scored inside the far post. Brianne Jenner and Fortino were credited with helpers, giving Cornell a 3-0 advantage.

St. Lawrence would respond, though, as Weisz settled in and kept the Big Red off the scoreboard for the remaining 39:47 of the game. The visitors would cut into their deficit at 11:29 of the second stanza, when Belanger ripped a one-timer from the blue line past Cornell goalie Amanda Mazzotta and under the cross bar, with assists going to sophomore Kelly Sabatine and first-year student Rylee Smith.

Despite having several quality chances throughout the final 30:00 minutes including a 5-on-3 try, St. Lawrence was not able to draw any closer as Mazzotta closed with 17 saves in net to earn a 3-1 victory. Weisz suffered the loss, but turned in 29 stops. Neither team was able to score on its power play tries, with both team's penalty killing units ranked in the top-6 nationally. St. Lawrence was 0-for-5 with the extra skater while the Big Red was 0-for-3.

St. Lawrence will look to rebound tomorrow, Saturday, December 4 when the team heads to Starr Rink in Hamilton, NY to take on Colgate University. The puck is scheduled to drop on the Saints and Raiders at 3:00pm.