The Robert Morris men’s hockey team hosted its first Atlantic Hockey conference game since the program’s rebirth Friday evening as they took on the Holy Cross Crusaders.

The Colonials dell in a heartbreaker 3-1 to the hands of the Crusaders, thanks to two goals from former Colonial Matt Guerra.

“We gotta find a way to get the job done. Um, I thought we played hard. I thought we played well. I thought it was what we expected,” head coach Derek Schooley said. “We gotta find ways to finish. We play hard. We compete. We do things well. When we’re in our structure and we play within our structure, pretty good. We just need to find a way to score more goals.”

One of the struggles from the Colonials tonight was the power play. RMU went 0-for-6 on the man advantage, while Holy Cross went 2-for-5.

“Unfortunately they scored power-play goals and we didn’t,” Schooley said. “We had a couple of wide-open nets down there. We just gotta outwork them and we gotta make sure that we do things the right way and outwork them. I thought our second group of [Michael] Craig, [Cade] Townend, [Logan] Ganey, [Tanner] Klimpke and [Jackson] Reineke. I thought they were really good.”

Guerra scored his first goal early in the second period, but it wasn’t until Tanner Klimpke got the Colonials on the board to tie the game.

“We hadn’t scored a goal at home, so it actually felt really good,” Schooley said. “But we got to make sure that we continue to do that and get some more [goals.] We haven’t had a lead here yet. We’ve chased a lot of games here. So, we need to make sure we start playing with a lead. Every time we’ve played with a lead, we’ve got a positive result.”

The Colonials were called with a late five-minute major penalty on Charles Merkley with 2:26 left in the game.

“That’s a youthful mistake. That’s a freshman trying to make a play and finish a check. When I saw it live, I thought it was [a five-minute penalty]”

Guerra scored his second of the game with 39 seconds left and later the Crusaders scored the empty netter to put the game on ice.

“For him to score both goals, It’s kind of a stick it to us a little bit,” Schooley said. “But, it was a nice shot. He scored four nice goals just like that for us and we’ve got to find ways to match that.”

The Colonials will face the Crusaders again tomorrow at Clearview Arena at 5 p.m.