WATERTOWN, Mass. – The Mercyhurst University men's hockey team allowed four goals in the second and suffered a 5-3 setback against the Falcons of Bentley University on Saturday night at the John A. Ryan Skating Arena. With the win, the Falcons evened the series at one game apiece and forced a decisive game three on Sunday night with the winner advancing to the Atlantic Hockey Conference semifinals next Friday in Rochester, New York.

Mercyhurst dropped to 17-15-4 overall while Bentley improved to 17-14-5 on the season.

The Lakers took a 1-0 lead when senior Chris Bodo scored his ninth goal of the season with 25 seconds left in the opening period. Senior defenseman Tyler Shiplo took an initial shot from the point that was blocked but ended up on the stick of senior defenseman Ryan Misiak. Misiak found Bodo between the circles and the St. Thomas, Ontario native sniped a shot over the blocker of Bentley freshman goaltender Jayson Argue.

Bentley outshot Mercyhurst by a 15-8 count in the opening period.

But, it was all Falcons in the middle twenty minutes.

Alex Grieve tied the game at 1-1 just 76 seconds into the second stanza with his fifth goal of the season on a shot from the right wing circle that seemed to fool Laker freshman netminder Brandon Wildung.

Sixty-one seconds later, Max French scored a power play goal, his 16th tally of the season, jamming home a rebound from an initial shot from Andrew Gladiuk. Matt Blomquist had the other assist.

Just 1:40 later, at the 3:57 mark, Kyle Schmidt scored his first of three goals on the night, beating Wildung with a rising shot from a tough angle that just snuck in under the crossbar. Schmidt scored again at 11:59, ending the night for Wildung, and closing out the scoring in the second period.

Bentley outshot Mercyhurst, 17-9, in the second period.

Redshirt senior Kyle Just started the scoring in the third period with a power play goal at 6:10 to give the Lakers life. Just's 12th goal of the season was assisted by senior Daniel Bahntge and senior Matthew Zay.

Schmidt completed the hat trick, and sealed the Bentley victory, with an empty-net tally at 18:24.

Bodo finished the scoring, his second of the game and tenth of the season, with 5.8 seconds left in regulation for the final margin. Bahntge and Just had the helpers.

With the one goal and one assist night, Just became the fourth player this season, and 20th in the Division I era in program history, to record 100 career points. The Arnprior, Ontario native has established career-highs in goals (12) and points (32) this season to reach the milestone.

Bodo, meanwhile, with his two goals, pulled him to within one goal of 50 for his career.

After recording his first collegiate shutout in game one, Wildung was pulled after allowing four goals on 29 shots. The freshman suffered the loss to drop to 9-9-3 on the season. Sophomore Spencer Bacon relieved Wildung and stopped all seven shots he faced in just over 25 minutes of action.

Argue picked up the victory after stopping 26-of-29 Mercyhurst shots. He improved to 8-6-4 on the season.

Bentley held a 37-29 shot advantage for the contest, but Mercyhurst did hold a 12-5 advantage in shots in the third period.

Mercyhurst was 1-for-3 on the power play while Bentley was 1-for-2 with the man advantage.

The decisive game three will take place on Sunday night at the John A. Ryan Skating Arena in Watertown, Massachusetts. Faceoff is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. with the winner advancing to the semifinal round.