BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A six-point weekend and first place in Atlantic Hockey. That's what the Sacred Heart Men's Hockey Team accomplished on its home opening set at Total Mortgage Arena after beating Canisius 3-1 this afternoon.

SHU (5-2, 5-1 AH), which won 6-3 last night, swept the Golden Griffins and ended a seven-game unbeaten string in the overall series while getting goals from three different players and a great day from a senior goalie. Luke Lush stopped 23 of 24 shots to earn a third straight win in net and help the Pioneers win for the fifth time in six outings.

He had to kill off a trio of third-period power plays to make Marcus Joughin's goal at 14:45 the winner at 2-1.  Assistant captain Neil Shea added an empty netter to put the game away.

The Pioneers got on the board 4:35 into the game on a pretty, tic-tac-toe power-play goal. Shea passed to Blake Humphrey, who had an open look and could have tried for his third goal of the weekend but moved the puck across the slot to Todd Goehring. The graduated student winger held and skated back across the low slot, deking forehand and then tucking a backhander on the ice for his third tally of the year.

Sacred Heart had two well-orchestrated advantages in the second period with the game tied, but could not solve Jacob Barczewski (24 saves), picked, along with Shea, as conference player of the year.

SHU, which opened the regular season with five straight road games, is getting three of the long road trips out of the way early in the season. Next weekend the Pios are at Mercyhurst for a pair.

PIOS POINTS

On the game-winning goal, Goehring batted the puck out of the air in the netural zone and it was picked up by Humphrey coming with speed into the offensive zone. Humphrey held the puck and waited for the defenseman to slide past him before spotting Joughin crashing the cage on the left side… SHU now has power-play success in three straight games… On the ENG, Kevin Lombardi came out of the box and then won a race to the loose puck in the offensive zone. He could have fired on net but flipped to Shea instead.