WORCESTER, Mass. – The Pioneers won almost all the races and the small battles tonight on the way to their first win of the 2022-23 season. But the game was much closer than the play indicated.
 
Marcus Joughin, Neil Shea and Todd Goehring hit the net and Justin Robbins made 16 saves in a 3-2 Atlantic Hockey win at Holy Cross. Sacred Heart scored twice in the first and once in the second and then held on for the victory behind their senior netminder.
 
"We talked to our group last week about how we would respond after the Providence game," said C.J. Marottolo. "It's always about how we respond, and we responded with a great team effort tonight. We stuck together and found a way. At times it got a little chaotic in the third for us. Holy Cross pushed, as we knew they would, but we found to get an important win."
Joughin, a rookie center looking for his first career goal, got a stick on a Hunter Sansbury shot from the point to give the visitors an early lead. Almost six minutes later, senior left winger Shea did the same thing on a John Jaworski shot from the top of the left circle. SHU's assistant captain notched the 14^th tally of his career.
 
When the score is 2-0, the momentum can shift so quickly. Robbins and the SHU special teams made sure that did not happen and came up with a monster penalty kill late in the second that propelled the visitors to their third goal. Robbins, who made at least six grade A stops, got a piece of a shot on an odd-man rush and then picked the puck out of the air after it sailed through heavy traffic on another shot. A few minutes later, Goehring skated around a defender, came in alone on the Crusader goal and flicked the puck over Thomas Galej's shoulder.
 
That was enough to get the win but this series has always been close and the home team wasn't going away. SHU thought it had put the game away midway through the third with a power-play tally, but a video review showed a high stick propelled the puck into the net. Holy Cross then got on the board and into the game that would go down to the wire and include an extra-man score to cut the lead to one.
 
The Pioneers (1-1, 1-0 AH), credited with just 22 shots on target (it was probably 10 shy of accurate), and Crusaders (0-3, 0-1 AH) are back at it again tomorrow night at 7 at the Hart Center.