WATERTOWN, Mass. – The Bentley Falcons withstood a strong rally by the Sacred Heart men's hockey team and came away with a 5-4 victory to take a 1-0 series lead Friday night in the first round of the Atlantic Hockey Tournament at John A. Ryan Arena.

Bentley (12-17-6) opened the scoring with 3:21 remaining in the first period when Max French took a pass from Andrew Gladiuk just outside the left circle, skated in and backhanded the puck past Brett Magnus for a 1-0 lead.

Sacred Heart (12-19-4) fell behind 2-0 when Max French struck again 7:48 into the second period. On the power play, Kyle Schmidt slid a pass across the crease and French was able to tuck the puck into the lower left side of the net. The Falcons increased their lead to 3-0 when Michael Reardon and Derek Bacon finished a 2-on-1 break with Reardon firing a pass from the right circle and Bacon depositing the puck into the left side of the goal with 9:55 remaining.

The Pioneers refused to buckle and dominated the rest of the second period. With 5:43 remaining, Zach Luczyk took a pass off the faceoff and his slap shot from the right circle beat Gabe Antoni to cut the lead to 3-1. With just 50 seconds left in the second and on a power play, a Justin Danforth shot rebounded out to Luczyk, who blasted it by Antoni for his second goal of the game. Danforth then tied it up 3-3 with 14 seconds left while still on the power play as Evan Jasper won the puck from a crowd at the side of the net and fed Danforth for the equalizer.

The third period belonged to the Falcons. Just 2:26 into the third period, Reardon took control of the puck behind Sacred Heart's goal and fed a perfect pass to Bacon in front who fired off a shot that beat Magnus and put Bentley ahead 4-3. Bentley added to its lead with 13:12 left as Bacon completed a hat trick after taking a pass from Reardon across the crease and finding the back of net for a 5-3 advantage. The Pioneers would not go quietly as Danforth added his second goal of the game 1:44 remaining on a hard wrist shot into the left side of the net. Bentley was able to hold on and preserve a 5-4 victory.

Bentley outshot Sacred Heart 31-30 for the game. Bentley was 1-for-3 on the power play in the game while Sacred Heart went 2-for-4. Zach Luczyk had his first career two goal game for the Pioneers.

Sacred Heart and Bentley play the second game of their best of three series tomorrow night, Saturday March 5.  Faceoff is 7:05pm at John A. Ryan Arena.