St. Lawrence University's field hockey team built a 5-1 lead in the first 44 minutes of Tuesday's non-league match with St. John Fisher College and then held on for dear life to upset the Cardinals 5-4 in a wild one on North Country Field.

The Saints, now 5-8, handed the Cardinals just their fourth loss and snapped a three-game win streak all by shutout for 9-4 St. John Fisher. While Fisher had the upper hand in shots and penalty corners, the Saints got a 19 save effort from sophomore goalkeeper Julia Hudson, two defensive saves from Carly Dziekan and a big afternoon from its offense.

SLU converted five of 13 shots on goal and rode a fast start to a big lead.

Junior Kara Pelosi opened the scoring with her eight of the year as she tapped a centering pass by Erica French past Fisher goalie Danielle Famolaro 7:09 into the game. It went to 2-0 at 13:04 when Anna Hughes whacked the ball into the cage in a scramble in front of Famolaro, and while the Cardinals got one back when Elizabeth Cusack scored her 12th of the season on a rebound at 18:58, the Saints came through with a quick answer to make it a 3-1 game at the half. Camille Burger scored the third Saint goal, her second of the year, putting a shot into the right side of the net from in close at 22:09.

Hughes scored her second of the game as she took a pass from Burger and worked around the goalie for a tap in 4:31 into the second half and the Saints seemed to be on easy street when Jamie Oriol took a pass from Pelosi and backhanded one between the pads of Famolaro from right in front at 43:36.

Not so fast.

Stacie Skidmore, who was all over the offensive zone for the Cardinals throughout the game, set up Alexis Zakala for Zakala's fifth of the year off a penalty corner with 19:31 to play and then zipped into the Saint defensive zone on a dash from just inside midfield and snapped a quick shot past Hudson for her 10th of the year just under six minutes later. Courtney Wittmeyer and Emily Markarian then collaborated on a pretty passing play in the circle with Markarian chipping Wittmeyer's pass out of the air for her 12th of the year with 10:35 to play to make it a 5-4 game.

The Saints were able to hang on, getting some good defense at the top of the circle and a big late save on Fisher's Caitlin Allen by Hudson with under a minute to play to preserve the win.

St. John Fisher outshot the Saints 28-16 overall and 25-13 in shots on goal and had 12 penalty corners to six for the Saints. The Saints had 21 saves between Hudson's career high 19 and the two defensive saves while Famolaro had eight saves for St. John Fisher.

The Saints will continue a four-game home stand with Nazareth at home at noon on Saturday.