Energized by a large and boisterous student section for a Friday night game in enemy territory at Ft. Dupont Ice Arena, the Landon Bears jumped all over the short-handed Gonzaga Eagles and cruised to a 7-2 victory.

The game wasn’t a period old before the Bears had built a 5-0 lead. The blistering start included a hat trick by Will Lawrence and goals from Jordan Dinesman and Matt Brille.

Lawrence opened the scoring at 5:53 of the first period when he zipped through the Gonzaga defense and slipped his shot under the pads of sophomore Chris With, who was filling in for two varsity goalies playing in travel tournaments. Just over a minute later, Dinesman capitalized on an odd man rush and scoring on a rebound of a shot by Tommy Kenary.

Lawrence notched his second goal on another spectacular individual effort, skating wide and cutting around the defender to put his shot high over With’s blocker 12:03. He completed his hat trick nearly a minute-and-a-half later with a wrist shot from 15 feet that beat With low on his stick side. Brille completed the onslaught 34 seconds later.

Gonzaga’s Brendan Snocker was able to solve Landon goalie Max Weinstein with a goal in the second period, but two more goals from Landon’s Jacob Hookman-Vassa kept the game out of reach for the Eagles