PITTSBURGH -- The Robert Morris University men's hockey team didn't have its best Friday night at the RMU Island Sports Center, but thanks to some sterling netminding and a bit of offensive opportunism, the Colonials are nonetheless halfway to their weekend goal.

Francis Marotte's 36 saves made Luke Lynch's second-period goal hold up as the decider in RMU's 2-0 defeat of Holy Cross in the opener of this weekend Atlantic Hockey series. Both players continued recent strong play with their contributions to the Colonials' fourth victory in five games; Marotte has given up just five goals in his past five outings, while Lynch has eight points -- three of them goals -- in six games.

"He's one part of our game we don't have to worry about," Lynch said of his junior classmate Marotte. "We know he's always going to give us a consistent effort, a consistent game. We didn't bring it hard enough for him tonight and we got two points mainly because of him."

There was a general air of dissatisfaction from RMU (7-7-1, 6-4-1 AHA) after it won for the fifth time in 10 home games this season. Firing just 19 shots on goal -- their second-lowest total of the season -- didn't sit well with the Colonials, even though they continued their recent strong defensive play.

Marotte was sharp right from the start, denying high-scoring Holy Cross defenseman Johnny Coughlin a couple of times in the first period and closing down a glorious rebound chacce from Jack Surowiec at the tail end of the second.

"We just found a way," head coach Derek Schooley said. "Our goaltender was outstanding and we scored some timely goals. I thought our defense was pretty good after a couple of scrambles. I wanted us to be a little bit better from the start, but I thought we were chasing the game."

The Colonials blocked 19 shots in support of Marotte, who moved into second place on the program's all-time shutout list with seven. He's one behind the Class of 2016's Terry Shafer for RMU's all-time lead in that category, and now one ahead of Dalton Izyk '17.

"It's nice, obviously, but there was a lot from the team in front of me," Marotte said. "We got a couple bounces tonight. It wasn't pretty, but a win's a win. ... It's a good honor to have, but I'd rather have championships, for sure."

Marotte noted that an adjusted pregame routine has him feeling better at the starts of games. It shows, as he's allowed just one first-period goal over the past five games, and that was an unstoppable power-play deflection four games ago.



Holy Cross (1-11-2, 1-7-1 AHA) got pretty solid goaltending from freshman Erik Gordon, too, but the Crusaders remained winless since taking their season opener against Canisius nearly two months ago. The visitors outshot Robert Morris 15-6 in the third as they pursued the tying goal, but the Colonials kept their discipline and rallied around their third-year starting goalie until Lynch set up Michael Coyne's empty-netter with 46 seconds remaining. (Alex Tonge picked up the secondary assist, putting him two behind Greg Gibson '16 for sixth on the Colonials' career scoring charts.)

After a relatively uneventful first period, action picked up in the second. The dominos started falling with Lynch's third goal in six games, a one-timed bullet to the top shelf off Justin Addamo's behind-the-back pass.

"He's definitely got a lot of skill in that big body of his," Lynch said of his 6-foot-6 freshman linemate. "Sometimes he'll beat a defenseman wide and take the puck to the net and sometimes he'll pass it. He definitely made an unbelievable pass there."

Following Lynch's pinpoint conversion from the left side of the net, Holy Cross twice came within inches of tying the score. First, defenseman Dalton Skelly's power-play point shot redirected off Daniel Mantenuto and rang the right post. A couple of minutes later, Colonials freshman defender Nolan Schaeffer slid into the crease to deny a Holy Cross chance with Marotte out of the crease.

On a night when 52 of the 60 minutes were played at even strength, there wasn't much room for either side to generate offense. In fact, Lynch probably had the best scoring opportunity of the third, when he pulled in a Nick Lalonde seam pass and was robbed point-blank by Gordon's glove. Schaeffer also hit the outside of the right post on a counterattack a little later. 

The biggest point of emphasis for Schooley after this one was that a more consistent attack will be necessary if RMU wants to earn its second series sweep in three weeks. 

"We didn't win a lot of wall battles to get pucks out," Schooley said. "So we spent a lot of time pinned in our own end. We also need to get pucks deep. We turned too many pucks over in the neutral zone. At the end of the day, we got the win, but if we play like that tomorrow, we're going to struggle. Tonight we were a little one-and-done, with not a lot of sustained (offensive) pressure."

The Colonials and Crusaders will square off at 4:05 p.m. Saturday at the RMU Island Sports Center to conclude the fall semester. A win for RMU would put it in fine position in the AHA standings heading into a road series at American International on Dec. 29-30.

"If we can go into the last game tomorrow and make sure that we get off to a good start," Schooley said, "we can go into break feeling good about ourselves."