DENVER, Colo. - Holy Cross defeated Mount St. Mary's 12-10 in non-conference women's lacrosse action on Wednesday.

Esther Rufolo (Woodstock, Md./Chapelgate Christian Academy) paced the Mount (1-3) with her second hat trick of the season along with one assist and seven draw controls. Ashley Johnson (Arvada, Colo./Arvada West) added two markers in the loss.

Kat Sutton fueled the Crusaders (1-3) with four goals. Megan Fenton added three markers and one assist while Katie Gardner dished out four assists in the winning effort.

Holy Cross scored five of the final eight tallies to come away with the win in the first-ever meeting between the two programs.

After Rufolo tied at the game at 7, Sutton started a 4-0 Holy Cross run with a natural hat trick in a span of two minutes and 30 seconds. Sutton scored off a Gardner helper (47:55), an 8-meter goal (49:26) and from a feeder from Fenton (50:25). Meg O'Leary capped the run with an unassisted tally at 51:26 for an 11-7 lead.

Rufolo stopped the Crusaders run with a free-position marker at 52:21 to trim the margin to 11-8, but Fenton found the back of the net off a Gardner assist with 2:01 remaining to restore a four-goal margin.

Johnson and Rufolo scored in the final 96 seconds, but Holy Cross came away with a 12-10 victory.

The two teams battled back and forth in the first half before the Crusaders scored the final two times in the stanza to take a 5-3 advantage at halftime.

Boylan got the scoring started off a Maddie Carrellas assist at 9:16 before the Mountaineers tied it when Alexis Salerno (South Setauket, N.Y./Ward Melville) found Emily Kirby (Reisterstown, Md./Franklin) at 10:51.

Taylor Zebrowski scored on an 8-meter shot at 13:56 and Gardner feed Fenton at 15:28 to give Holy Cross a 3-1 lead.

Mount St. Mary's answered with two goals to knot the game at 3. After Kirby set up Johnson at 16:41, Jackie Kearney (Baltimore, Md./Seton Keough) found the twine off a Natalie Loutchaninoff (Kingwood, Texas/Northeast Christian Academy) assist at 18:56.

The Crusaders took the lead at the break thanks to a Sutton tally from Gardner at 22:28 and an unassisted goal by O'Leary at 24:46.

The Mount scored the first three goals of the second half to grab a 6-5 advantage. Kaitlyn Larrimore (Pylesville, Md./North Harford) converted a free-position opportunity at 34:58 and Loutchaninoff posted an 8-meter goal at 35:39 before Lucy Pompa (Baltimore, Md./Bryn Mawr) gave the Mount a one-goal advantage off a Rufolo assist at 36:27.

The Crusaders answered with two tallies to reclaim the advantage at 7-6. Fenton scored off an Annie Boylan assist at 26:46 and Gardner converted a free-position chance at 37:21.

Rufolo answered right back with an 8-meter goal of her own at 40:03 to knot the score at 7, but Holy Cross scored four unanswered goal to take the lead it would not relinquish.

Brigid McTavish (Mount Airy, Md./South Carroll) made nine saves for the Mountaineers while Amy Martin turned away nine shots for the Crusaders.

Aly Jost (Abington, Md./Bel Air) paced the Mount defense with three ground balls and three caused turnovers. Pompa added four draw controls, one ground ball and one caused turnover while Kearney posted two caused turnovers and a ground ball.

Johnson, who scored three goals while playing in her home state, moves into eighth place on the program's all-time career goals list with 92 tallies.

Mount St. Mary's returns to action on Wednesday at George Washington. Match time is 3:30 p.m.