"It was tough," said Pioneers captain Alexandre Parent. "We had some guys out tonight, and we had a tough weekend last weekend at RIT, obviously, so we had to bounce back. We worked really hard all week"

Trapp, the Pioneers' leading scorer with 20 points, is day-to-day after suffering a shoulder injury against RIT last weekend, while Ferraro is still recovering from a concussion against the Tigers. However, the Pioneers responded just as head coach Shaun Hannah hoped they would.

"Everybody knew he had to step up and make a contribution," Hannah said. "We've been talking about that for a couple of weeks, and it was good to see some guys contribute offensively with Trapper out."

On the other side, the Crusaders didn't come close to the effort that head coach Paul Pearl was looking for.

"I don't think that we competed nearly hard enough that you have to," Pearl said. "They won all the one-on-one battles, and that was the difference."

A great deal of the damage was done in the first period, as Eric Giosa - normally the left wing on Trapp's line with center Nick Johnson - staked the Pioneers to a 2-0 lead with his eighth and ninth tallies of the season. The Pioneers' dominance went beyond the goals, though: Sacred Heart won 18 of 24 faceoffs in the first period, a key element of the Pioneers' success in holding the Crusader power play (second in the nation entering Friday's contest) to 0-for-3 in the period (and 0-for-7) in the game.

"That was one of our focuses this week preparing for Holy Cross," Hannah said. "A big part of their offense is the power play, and I thought our guys did a real good job of not letting them accomplish what they wanted to in those situation."

"We couldn't retrieve the puck tonight," Pearl said. "We couldn't get it set up. We weren't coming with enough speed, and once they received it, they did a good job of clearing it before we could get set up."

In the second period, the Pioneers didn't give their guests much of an opportunity to start a comeback, as Adam DeJong and Matt Gordon doubled Sacred Heart's lead within the first five minutes of the middle frame. Then, after Dale Reinhardt scored his fifth goal of the season to get the Crusaders on the board, Parent responded with his ninth tally of the season to extend the lead back to four goals.

"We've been scoring two or three goals a game lately," Parent said. "It's good to get a burst of offense today. We shot the puck really well today, I thought."

The third period didn't see much movement by either team, as the Pioneers cruised the rest of the way to the 5-1 win. With a loss at UConn by conference leader RIT, the Crusaders moved within two points of first place, but Hannah isn't particularly worried about the standings at this point.

"I think we've got to be focused on what we're doing," Hannah said. "We still have a couple of games in hand on RIT and Air Force, and we don't make those up for a while yet. We're in the driver's seat, I think, at this point, and just need to continue focusing on what we have to do."

Besides, there's another game to play this weekend - the Pioneers travel to the Hart Center in Worcester for a rematch with the Crusaders on Saturday night - and after scoring two games' worth of goals in one night, the question remains: are there any left for Saturday?

"I think so," Parent said with a laugh. "I hope so. I think it gives the guys more confidence, so I think we can come back really strong tomorrow."

They'd better, because if Pearl has his way about it, there will be a much different Crusaders team taking the ice in Worcester on Saturday.

"I think this is one of those games that you pretend never happened," Pearl said, "and then you have to come and get after them tomorrow."

Goodnight from the Milford Ice Pavilion.