WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross is no doubt thrilled to say "so long" to Ryan Walsh.
 
Colgate's senior captain scored with 43 seconds remaining to complete a hat trick and a furious Colgate rally in the 14-13 triumph over Holy Cross here Saturday. In four career games against the Crusaders, Walsh finished with 15 goals and one assist.
 
Saturday was the first time Walsh didn't register a four-goal game, but his third in this wild affair might have hurt the purple-clad followers the most.

First-year attackman Anthony Abbadessa added season-highs of four goals and six points, and Colgate needed every one to overcome a Holy Cross squad determined to advance to the Patriot League tournament for the first time. Colgate with its third straight win punched a ticket to the postseason, improving to 7-4 overall and 5-2 in conference.

The Raiders remain second in the league standings, one-half game behind Navy. The Midshipmen finished their Patriot League season at 6-2 Saturday thanks to a 10-7 win over Army. Colgate needs a win Friday night at Army (7 p.m., CBS Sports) and a Loyola (5-2) victory at Bucknell to force a three-way tie at the top.
 
The Raiders just might win that three-way runoff and earn hosting honors for the Patriot League tourney.
 

Colgate twice trailed by four goals in the first half and never led until midway in the fourth quarter. The Raiders then fell behind Holy Cross again only to rally once more on goals from Abbadessa and Walsh in the final two minutes-plus.
 
Abbadessa scored his fourth of the game on a man-up chance to tie it at 13-13 with 2:10 to play. And then Walsh side-armed one past the Crusaders keeper for the game-winner just 43 seconds from the finish.
 
Colgate finished 3-of-3 on man-up chances and blanked Holy Cross (5-7, 2-5) on its only two extra-man opportunities. The Raiders entered the game leading the Patriot League in both categories.

Walsh posted his second hat trick of the season and 21st of his career. Abbadessa also registered his second hat trick, bettering the three-goal performance at Vermont back on Feb. 14. Senior captain Matt Clarkson added five huge points on a goal and four assists, and the Raiders received two goals apiece from Cameron Williams, Chase Wittich and Peter Donato.

Bottom Line
• Colgate 14, Holy Cross 13
 
Won-Lost Records
• Colgate improved to 7-4 overall and 5-2 in the Patriot League.
• Holy Cross dropped to 5-7 and 2-5.
 
Facts & Figures
• Colgate ourscored Holy Cross 6-3 in both the second and fourth quarters. The team's season-high for one quarter was that seven-goal first quarter outburst against Lafayette on Feb. 21.
• Colgate trailed 5-1 after the first quarter and 7-3 midway in the second.
• The Raiders then put on a four-goal run over a 3:19 stretch to draw level at 7-all. It looked like that would be the halftime score before Holy Cross tallied with 2.2 seconds left before the break.
• Colgate trailed at the end of the first three periods. Before Saturday, the Raiders were 1-3 when trailing at the end of the first period, 0-4 when trailing at half and 0-4 when trailing after three.

• Peter Donato's unassisted goal with 8:52 remaining in the game handed Colgate its first lead at 12-11.
• Holy Cross responded with two goals 35 seconds apart, the latter with just 2:31 left, to reclaim the lead at 13-12.
• But Colgate drew its third man-up opportunity of the game and scored its third goal to tie it once again. Anthony Abbadessa did the honors from Matt Clarkson with 2:10 showing.
• Colgate regained possession and Ryan Walsh put the Raiders in front for keeps. His sidearm goal with 43 seconds to play from the Cameron Williams assist completed a hat trick for the senior captain.
• Walsh has 21 hat tricks for his career and two this season.
• The Raiders were outshot 44-27 in the game, including 15-1 in the third quarter. But Colgate (Abbadessa) scored on its only shot attempt that period and Holy Cross scored just twice.
• Ground balls favored the Crusaders by a 28-24 count, while Colgate committed 10 turnovers to eight for Holy Cross. The home side posted a 17-13 edge in faceoffs
 
Special Teams Rule
• The Raiders won the man-up category in a big way. Colgate finished 3-of-3 in the extra-man, while holding Holy Cross to 0-of-2. The Raiders entered the game leading the Patriot League and fifth nationally in man-up, and leading the Patriot League and 12th nationally in extra-man defense.
• Colgate for the season is now 19-of-33 on man-up chances for 57.6 percent. The Raiders have allowed only eight goals in 30 opponent chances for a 73.3-percent kill rate.
 
Beyond the Box Score
• In addition to Abbadessa's four-goal and six-point game (both season-highs for the first-year Arizonan) and Walsh's hat trick, the Raider scoring broke down this way: Clarkson tallied a tying goal and four assists, Williams and Chase Wittich both had two goals and an assist, Donato scored two goals and Strecker Backe pitched in an assist.
• Walsh for his career against Holy Cross finished with 15 goals and one assist. Today was the first game he did not score four goals against the Crusaders.
• Walsh also picked up four key ground balls to lead the Raiders in that category. Connor Murphy and Collin Orr added three apiece – Orr's as part of his 10-of-23 effort at the faceoff-X.

• Lost in the box score might be a single caused turnover and ground ball from Chase Cowan. That play was huge as Colgate was fighting off one of two Holy Cross extra-man opportunities.
• Backe also stood tall in the closing seconds, getting a stick on a Holy Cross pass as the clock wound toward zero. The Crusaders never were able to get off a potential tying shot.
 
Turning Point
• Down 13-12 with the clock approaching the two-minute mark, Colgate displayed one final dose of determination.
• Gifted a man-up chance, Abbadessa scored with 2:10 remaining to tie the game at 13-13. It was Colgate's third man-up goal of the afternoon.
• Then 90 seconds later, Walsh tallied his third of the game on a sidearm slingshot to hand Colgate a crucial victory.
 
From the Source
• Colgate head coach Mike Murphy: (On the game) "You've got to give Holy Cross credit. I know their backs were against the wall after last week against Lafayette, but we've got play better. We've got to be better-focused for 60 minutes.
"You also have to give our guys credit. We didn't have the ball much on offense at times, but when we did we scored some goals. And then at the end, when we needed to play defense the way we are accustomed to doing, we did."
(On the top scorers coming through) "Yeah, Ryan Walsh has a tendency to like playing against these guys. Today was his least-productive day of his four-year career with the three goals, but Anthony Abbadessa continues to play at a high level. Matt Clarkson was very good today distributing the ball and had a big goal for us as well.
"The offense definitely carried the day for us. We've just got to get back to playing Colgate defense."
(On the fourth-quarter rally) "The faceoff stats don't look great for us, but we came up with some key faceoff wins or we turned them over in the faceoff game to secure the ball. We dug ourselves a hole, but we continued to show character and poise and we fought our way back."
(On key plays) "We held them 0-for-2 on their man-up and we went 3-for-3. If you're looking for reasons why you win a one-goal game, we won special teams. Chase Cowan came up with a huge nugget on a man-down situation, knocking the ball down and coming up with the ground ball to set us up to scoring a goal on that next possession."
(On the coming week) "We've got a chance to go to Army for the first time in a long time at historic Michie Stadium. I know our guys will be pumped."
• Colgate senior Ryan Walsh: (On the game) "We knew what was at stake for us. We want a bye and we want to win out the rest of the season. We want to take care of one game at a time.
"There were a lot of ups and downs in this game, but it was good to end up on top."
(On the winning goal) "I caught the ball from Cameron and remember I had some time and room. I thought if I got it on net, good things would happen. There were a couple of guys screening the goalie and I'm happy it went it, that's for sure."
(On the offense) "Little-guy Abbadessa played like a big man today. He had a lot of goals and he's coming on strong for us. It's fun to watch him grow as a player.
"Clarkson played well and our faceoff unit came up big when we needed it. It was an overall team effort."
• Colgate senior Matt Clarkson: (On the offense) "Anthony's great. He's starting to get the feel for the offense. They were sliding really quickly and it took us some time to get going, but once we figured out what to do we were pretty efficient on offense today."
(On his game) "Guys were finding open spaces in the defense and we made a few adjustments after the first quarter to open up the field a little bit."
(On playing at Army) "It's a huge game against Army. We want the bye, so it's a big week and a big game Friday."
• Colgate freshman Anthony Abbadessa: (On the offense) "Everybody was contributing. Our defense has had games where they were tough, so we needed to take the load off. Luckily, today it happened."
(On his four-goal game) "Everything was working. Our offense was working well and we knew we had to keep the ball moving to get it past this defense. Everything was falling for me."
 
Gate Grab Bag
• Attendance on a beautiful day at Holy Cross Field was a standing-room crowd of 1,489.
 
Up Next
• Colgate concludes its Patriot League regular season Friday at Army in a game televised by the CBS Sports Network.
• The Black Knights dropped a 10-7 decision Saturday at Navy to fall to 8-4 overall and 4-3 in the Patriot League.
• Start time from Michie Stadium is 7 p.m.