Fairfield, Conn. (April 26, 2014) – The Mount St. Mary's men's lacrosse team suffered a 14-10 loss in the season finale on the road at Sacred Heart on Saturday afternoon. In an attempt to bring his team back from an 8-2 third-quarter deficit, junior attackman Mark Hojnoski scored three goals and dished out two assists for the Mount in the loss.

The Mount (1-15, 1-5 NEC) outscored the Pioneers (6-8, 4-2 NEC) by an 8-7 margin in the second half, but could not recover from a slow start that resulted in a 7-2 Sacred Heart halftime lead.

Hojnoski finished the season with hat tricks in consecutive games, while Kyle McDonough and Evan Gormley added two goals apiece on Saturday to close the season. At the face-off X, Mike Celmer put on another strong performance by winning 20-of-27 face-offs to go with a game-high nine ground balls.

Sacred Heart received four goals apiece from Mike Mawdsley and Alex Miller and picked up the win despite being outshot, 43-30, including 21-4 in the final quarter.

After SHU took a 3-0 advantage through one quarter, the Mount's man-up unit got the visitors on the board with McDonough's strike off a Hojnoski feed with 12:35 left before halftime. Just over a minute later, senior Mike Daly secured a goal to cut the Mount's deficit down to 3-2.

In the final 8:10 of the quarter, the Pioneers regained the momentum with four goals, including two off the stick of Brian Masi for a 7-2 halftime advantage.

Following Matt Gannon's goal in the fourth minute of the third quarter, the Mountaineers found their shooting touch with four-consecutive goals to claw back in the game. Gormley's goal was followed by one from Robert Jones and two from Hojnoski to put the score at 8-6 in favor of SHU with 3:44 showing on the third quarter clock.

The Pioneers were able to build their lead back up to 10-6 before Hojnoski found McDonough for his second goal of the game with five seconds left in the third.

SHU came out of the final intermission on fire with three goals in the first five minutes as the home side's lead ballooned to 13-7 at the 11:47 mark.

The Mount bounced back with three of the game's final four goals, but it was not enough to overcome the deficit. Gormley's second strike of the game with 10:37 showing was followed by Miller's fourth for SHU. Hojnoski netted another extra-man goal with 3:23 left, and freshman Mike Pascali capped the scoring with the final goal with 2:05 remaining.

The Mountaineers managed two more shots in the final two minutes but were kept off the scoreboard the rest of the way. 

The Mount won the ground balls battle with 32 to Sacred Heart's 28. In addition to Celmer's nine ground balls, Braedon Graham added six and Brett Shukri chipped in with five. Between the pipes, senior goalkeeper Chris Klaiber tallied four saves in his final collegiate game, while Sacred Heart used three goalies with Ryan Hughes making six first-half saves to earn the win.