The win marks Dartmouth's 27th straight victory over Holy Cross.
Despite losing the last four games, the Crusaders (3-5, 0-4 Patriot League) have had an impressive season thus far, knocking off Yale in early season play. Holy Cross has put together one of its better teams in recent memory.
"It was a good win for us," captain Doug Rendall '09 said. "We played pretty well. We're still yet to put together a complete game, but it was still good performance by our guys."
Head coach Bill Wilson was happy with his team's thorough offensive domination against the Crusaders, but saw room for improvement.
"I have mixed feeling about the game," Wilson said. "But I'm very pleased our guys came out and played hard. We're always really pushing to see that from our and guys and it's something we've now seen them do all season."
Ari Sussman '10 and Jon Livadas '09 led the Big Green with four goals each.
Holy Cross attackman Chris Smirti scored eight goals for the Crusaders and totaled ten points, but that was not enough to lead his team past the Big Green. His impressive game tied Holy Cross's school record in both categories.
Dartmouth outshot Holy Cross 44-29 and converted nearly half of those shots. into goals.
"Our offense did a much better job today than in the past on finishing their shots," Rendall said.
Wilson attributed the offensive explosion to the team's hard work between the Holy Cross and Brown games.
"Our guys put some time shooting the ball in between the Brown game and the game [Tuesday], and it really showed," Wilson said. "Shooting was a big concern of ours after Brown because of our low shooting-percentage, but we ended up shooting really well against Holy Cross."
The Crusaders kept the game close in the first period, and the score was even at 5-5 at the end of the period.
Robby Pride '10 scored his first goal of the season just over two minutes into the game. Two minutes later, Phil Killian '09 followed up the goal with one of his own.
Livadas, Jimmy Mullen '09 and Josh Gillam '10 scored the final three goals for Dartmouth in the period.
With the score knotted at five in the beginning of the second period, Mullen added his second goal of the game which spurred a Big Green run that demoralized the Holy Cross team.
Holy Cross then responded to another goal from Livadas, bringing the score to 7-6 in favor of the Big Green. Dartmouth responded with a 6-0 run which extended into the third period.
Sussman began the run, scoring two goals within a minute. Livadas followed Sussman's goals with his third score of the game. Chris Root '10 closed out the period scoring his first goal of the game with six seconds remaining.
The third period began with another Sussman goal before Smirti ended the Big Green run. Sussman, Livadas and Root each added another goal in the third period, bringing the score to 15-8 going into the final period.
Brian Koch '09 started of the fourth period for the Big Green attack with the first of his two goals, scoring his 13th goal of the season less than 30 seconds into the period.
Rhett Miller '11 followed Koch less than three minutes later, which gave Dartmouth a nine-goal advantage. Koch, Gillam, Killian and Benji Spanier '10 rounded out the scoring in the fourth period.
The victory Tuesday follows a 1-2 stretch over spring break.
Dartmouth fell to conference rival Brown 9-5 and to national powerhouse, seventh-ranked Notre Dame, 19-7, over the spring interim break.The losses were sandwiched by a 16-8 victory over first-year Division I program Presbyterian in South Carolina.
Brown goalie Jordan Burke had an extraordinary game against Dartmouth, saving 17 shots in the contest. The Big Green produced a balanced offensive effort in the match, with goals from Sussman, Livadas, Koch, Mullen and Towny Swiggett '10.
According to Rendall, the loss against the Bears was particularly frustrating.
"It was a tough game," Rendall said. "We played hard but we didn't play perfectly, and it was just tough. Their goalie is very good and we didn't execute enough to win."
While the score of the game against Notre Dame was lopsided, Dartmouth was in contention for most of the game.
At halftime, the Big Green was only down by three goals, 7-4. Notre Dame had a particularly strong fourth period, however, in which the Fighting Irish outscored the Dartmouth men 7-1 and squashed any hopes for a comeback.
The team resumes play on Saturday against No. 3 Duke Blue Devils (9-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) at Mitchell Park on Long Island, N.Y., at 4 p.m.
