The St. John Fisher College men's lacrosse team won its Empire 8 Conference season opener on Saturday, as the Cardinals rallied from a 5-3 deficit to score six straight goals and held on for a 10-7 win over host Hartwick College.

With the win, Fisher improves to 4-3 overall.

Saturday's game was eerily-similar to Thursday's 12-11 loss to Geneseo, but with a final 15 minutes play out in Fisher's favor.

Drew Brown scored his first of three goals to start the game, but the Hawks scored three goals in the final five minutes of the first to take a 3-1 lead after one and led 5-3 late in the second quarter.

Christopher Buschi scored late in the second quarter to make it 5-4 going into the locker room and Fisher took the lead for good, outscoring the Hawks 5-0 in the third.

Nick Papayanakos scored in the first five minutes of the third, tying the game at 5s, while Andrew Rosso scored his 13^th goal of the year to put the Cardinals up for good.

After goals from Papayanakos and Brown, long-stick midfielder Jake Clement scored with one second left in the third quarter off a pass from Gary Bova to put the Cardinals up 9-5 going into the fourh.

Hartwick scored the first two goals of the fourth to make it a two-goal game, but Fisher's Matthew Condon squashed the comeback with his first goal of the game with seven minutes left to close out the scoring.

Junior goalie Tanner Swan earned the win in net, stopping 16 shots, including nine in the second half.

Faceoff specialist Kevin O'Donnell won 13-of-20 draws and led Fisher with nine ground balls. Mitch Rein and Zakary Bussey each forced three turnovers.

Fisher returns to action at 4 p.m. on Wednesday at Union College.