LAWRENCEVILLE — Anthony Myles decided to ask one of his friends on the women’s team for some pink socks to pair with his red sneakers. It was Valentine’s Day after all.

Turned out to be the perfect match — Cupid’s arrow not necessary.

Myles scored 17 points, Zedric Sadler netted a career-high 16 and Rider avoided a Valentine’s nightmare with a 72-57 victory over St. Peter’s Thursday night at Alumni Gymnasium.

“We need to separate ourselves,” said Myles, who had 13 of his 17 in the second half as the Broncs overcame a sloppy start and outscored the Peacocks 41-26 after intermission. “This is the point in the season we need to show that we are a contender and can win this league.”

Rider improved to 14-13 overall and 9-6 in the MAAC, pulling within 1 1/2 games of idle Niagara for first place. St. Peter’s fell to 8-17 and 3-12.

The final conference homestand continues Sunday against Marist before league play concludes with the western New York trip in two weeks.

Sadler gave the Broncs a boost off the bench, knocking down four 3-pointers and finishing 6 of 8 from the field.

The freshman guard said he wasn’t feeling fatigue from the long season, but needed to be more aggressive.

“The stuff I do in practice, I wasn’t taking it over to the games,” Sadler said. “Coach told me I had to be more aggressive like I was when I was having good games, and that was starting on the defensive end.”

While it was nice for Sadler to be a key offensive cog Thursday night, coach Kevin Baggett, praised him more his jack-of-all-trades ability.

“Zed’s whatever we need every night,” Baggett said. “I just thought he stopped being aggressive for some games here. I just wanted him to go back to being the Zedric that I’m used to putting out on the court.”

Sadler connected on back-to-back 3s midway through the second half, giving Rider an 11-point cushion against a pesky Peacocks side that wouldn’t go away up to that point despite the Broncs shooting over 60 percent.

“It was just playing with confidence,” said Sadler when asked about his 3-point accuracy. “If I be aggressive, I can hit those shot. I have confidence.”

Jon Thompson finished with 14 points, including a second consecutive game with a four-point play and Danny Stewart added eight and 14 rebounds.

Yvon Raymond led St. Peter’s with nine, while three other players finished with eight.

Despite shooting 66.7 percent in the first half, Rider needed an 8-0 run over the final 2:36 to pull into a 31-31 tie at intermission.

The Broncs were sloppy with the ball, coughing it up 11 times, often leading to easy baskets for St. Peter’s. A careless pass allowed Desi Washington to get open for a 3-pointer, forcing Baggett into a timeout — one he started calling before the ball even left the St. Peter’s guards hands.

The coach lit into his team during the timeout.

Although his message couldn’t be repeated, his team understood.

“We just weren’t playing defense the way that we’re used to playing defense,” Baggett said. “We were playing passive and then offensively, against the zone, it took us too long to get into what we wanted we were trying to get done. Once teams play zone against us, it frazzles us for a minute.”

The response: the 8-0 run to close the half.

And no love for the Peacocks in the second.

“We wanted to start the second half how we ended the first half,” Myles said. “We started the first half very slow and it really wasn’t us. When we went into halftime, we knew we had to come out with intensity because St. Peter’s was going to match it. We had to be the tougher team.”

NOTES: Game time for Rider’s Feb. 23 BracketBuster against Charleston Southern at Alumni Gym has been changed to 5 p.m. … Trenton Catholic Academy products Markese Tucker and Chazz Patterson finished with four and two points, respectively for St. Peter’s. … Nurideen Lindsey fouled out for the fourth time this season, tops on the team.