WORCESTER, Mass. – Bentley fell short in its bid to claim one of the four byes in the Atlantic Hockey playoffs with a 6-4 loss to Holy Cross in the regular season finale at the Hart Center Saturday night.

The Falcons trailed 5-2 after two periods, and fell behind 6-2 after Rob Linsmayer scored for Holy Cross 3:06 into the third period. Bentley tried to mount a comeback as Jamie Nudy (West Chester, Pa./Choate Rosemary Hall) and Brett Gensler (St. Charles, Mo./Youngstown Phantoms) scored to make it 6-4 with under 10 minutes remaining, but they couldn't score again.

Gensler had a penalty shot denied by goalie Matt Ginn with 34 seconds left which would have made it a one goal game.

Bentley finishes the regular season with records of 13-13-8 overall and 13-7-7 in Atlantic Hockey. They'll be the sixth-seed in the tournament and will host Sacred Heart in a best-of-three series beginning Friday night. Holy Cross finishes at 17-13-4 overall and 15-8-4

Bentley got off to a bright start as freshman Brett Switzer (Calgary, Alberta/Spruce Grove Saints) put them up 1-0 with his 11^th of the season at 10:43 of the first. Alex Grieve (Calgary, Alberta/Westside Warriors) fed Switzer a pass from the blue line to the dot on the left face-off circle, where he beat Ginn with a wrist shot.

With under three minutes left in the period though, Gianni Baldassari tied the score, and that was the closest Bentley would be the rest of the game.

Andrew Cox scored just 57 seconds into the start of a disastrous  second period for Bentley to give Holy Cross a 2-1 lead, and at the 8:24 mark, Adam Schmidt scored the first of his three goals in the period to make it 3-1.

Jared Rickord (Skokie, Ill./Springfield Jr. Blues) got Bentley to within 3-2 at 11:24 during a delayed penalty call, gathering a loose puck in front of the net, skating around the crease and beating Ginn to his stick side.

But the game got away from Bentley after Rickord's goal, as Schmidt would score twice more over the remainder of the period, at 13:35 and 16:07 for a natural hat trick, to give the Crusaders a commanding 5-2 lead after two periods.