WORCESTER, Mass. (February 16, 2024) – "We'll have to regroup really quickly tomorrow."
 
Head coach C.J. Marottolo summed things up for the Sacred Heart University men's ice hockey team on Friday night. Staked to second place and holding a four-point lead over third-place Holy Cross heading into the season's penultimate weekend, the Pioneers saw much of that lead evaporate at the Hart Center, in the opener of a weekend home-and-home between the two. Mistakes in their own end proved costly, as the home-standing Crusaders posted a 5-1 victory. Brendan Dumas (North Attleboro, Mass.) tallied his first collegiate goal in defeat for SHU.
 
"In a nutshell tonight, that game was about puck management and our turnovers put us in a bad spot tonight," added Marottolo.
 
The result leaves second place in Atlantic Hockey very much on the line on home ice for the Pios on Saturday, in the second-to-last game of the season for both squads. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. at Martire Family Arena in Fairfield. SHU will honor its senior class prior to the game.
 
Holy Cross (17-11-4, 12-9-3 AHA) honored its senior class prior to the start of the game and then kept the party going all through the first period in front of a raucous Hart Center crowd, with three goals to take much of the drama out of the night. The opener came at the 4:14 mark, after SHU turned the puck over inside its own blue line. Jack Seymour immediately got it to Liam McLinskey, Holy Cross' leading scorer, who snapped his 12^th of the season home from the top of the right circle.
 
More sloppy play in the defensive end proved costly at 9:10, as SHU (14-16-2, 14-9-1 AHA) was unable to expeditiously clear the puck from the danger area after initially breaking up a Matt DeBoer centering attempt. Instead, the puck pinballed back to DeBoer just to the right of the cage. He shuffled it out front for Tyler Ghirardosi who popped his 13^th of the year from point-plank range.
 
The period's exclamation mark came at 15:59, immediately following an offensive-zone faceoff for the Crusaders on the left-wing side. John Gelatt won the draw to his right, where the puck got to the stick of DeBoer between the hash marks. The latter quickly fired home his fourth of the campaign from there.
 
The Crusaders put home two more in the second to open the lead up to 5-0. At 5:21, Seymour capped an odd-man rush with an easy one-time finish from the left side for his fourth of the year. At 18:35, it was the second of the night for McLinskey, who put a snap shot away from the top of the left circle on the rush.
 
At the end of a mostly-uneventful third stanza, SHU broke up the shutout inside the final 10 seconds. Conner Hutchison (Hicksville, N.Y.) carried deep into the right-wing corner and centered for a charging Dumas, who salted away his first collegiate goal at 19:53, to create the 5-1 final.
 
Justin Robbins (New York, N.Y.) started in the SHU crease, made 12 saves against 17 shots across the first two periods and suffered the loss (6-6-0). Cullen DeYoung (Canton, Mich.) took over for the final frame and stopped all 12 shots he faced.
 
"Bright spots, I'm really proud of Brendan Dumas for getting his first goal tonight, it was a really nice play," continued Marottolo. "Proud of Cullen DeYoung coming in in the third and giving us a chance to claw back. Basically those are the only two positives."
 
Jason Grande (9-3-2) narrowly missed out on his second shutout of the season, as he stopped 30 of 31 shots in front of the Holy Cross goal.