The St. Lawrence women's hockey team picked up valuable points in the ECAC standings on Friday night with a 3-1 win over Rensselaer in its first game at Appleton Arena since Dec. 6. With the win the Saints improve to 11-8-3 overall and 7-3-2 against conference opponents, while also moving into a tie for fourth place with Princeton. Meanwhile, the Engineers drop to 4-16-3 and 2-9-0 in league play.

The team's traded goals in the first period, with the Saints heading into the first intermission leading 2-1 thanks to the game-winning power-play goal by junior defenseman Megan Armstrong.

St. Lawrence held a commanding 40-16 shot advantage in the contest and the team defense in front of first-year goalie Brooke Wolejko was nearly impenetrable as the Saints blocked a total of 21 shots, including four in the final two minutes with RPI pressing to tie the game late.

At the opposite end of the ice, senior goaltender Kelly O'Brien made huge stops down the stretch for RPI that kept the Engineers in the game.

"RPI plays hard and tough," Head Coach Chris Wells said. "They are always one of the best coached teams in the league. We had some good chances midway through the third period to get some space on them, but O'Brien made some great saves to keep it a one goal game."

The Saints jumped out to an early lead when Kennedy Marchment snapped a four-game scoring drought as she tucked home the rebound from a Brooke Webster shot at the 3:17 mark of the first period for her 10th goal of the season. O'Brien made a pad save on Webster from the edge of the crease, but the puck skipped out to Marchment on the far post for an easy finish.

RPI pulled even just under the midway point of the opening frame with a power-play goal from Hannah Behounek on a quick wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle that beat Wolejko just under the bar.

With the game tied at 1-1, the Engineers were assessed two penalties on one play and saw Shayna Tomlinson and Delaney Middlebrook sit for hooking and checking, respectively, with just over two minutes remaining in the first period. The visitors had already successfully killed off one minute and four seconds of a five-on-three St. Lawrence advantage earlier in the game, but were unable to escape the second unscathed.

At the 18:46 mark of the first, Armstrong cashed in for her third goal of the season and first on the power play when she dug the puck out of a scrum in front and stuffed it under the pads of O'Brien to give St. Lawrence the lead for good. Kailee Heidersbach and Amanda Boulier assisted on the play.

The 2-1 score would hold into the final minutes of regulation, when senior Kayla Raniwsky tallied an empty net insurance goal to seal the 3-1 win.

"We had a huge shot block and a great little play with the goalie out to allow our empty-net goal to put the game away," Wells said. "We had some different groups playing together tonight and thought our team worked well to generate some offense."

Webster finished with a team-high 10 shots, while Kirsten Padalis led the Saints in shot blocks, with five. Additionally, Wolejko finished with 15 saves in her fourth career victory.

The Saints will close out the weekend with a 4 p.m. contest against Union at Appleton on Saturday afternoon.