Freshman Skaters Topple Merrimack

The Harvard freshman hockey team finally exploded for five goals in the final period to defeat a weak Merrimack junior varsity, 7-4, in a game marred by penalties and two periods of poor play, yesterday afternoon in Watson Rink.

Crimson center Bill Hozack and rightwing Mike Leckie both scored hat tricks to lead the freshmen to their seventh win against only two defeats.

The game began slowly. The Crimson skaters, coming off the three-week vacation, frequently were caught out of position. Only the solid goaltending of Brian Petrovek shut out Merrimack in the first period, which ended with the freshmen leading, 1-0.

In the second period the Crimson continued to skate sluggishly. Hozack scored his second goal at 6:45 of the middle stanza, but Merrimack responded with two goals to close the period tied at 2-2.

Fortunately, the Crimson's adversary managed to score only one power play goal when Harvard was penalized six times in the first two periods.

La Fin

In the last period the Harvard skaters finally unloaded. Lyman Bullard started things off at 3:14, poking in the rebound of a shot taken by defenseman Ken Dummitt.

Twenty seconds later Merrimack's Tom Dettore tied the score again, but then Harvard reeled off three unanswered goals, two by Leckie and one by Hozack.

Leckie finished the Harvard scoring with 50 seconds left in the game by shooting the puck into an empty net while teammate Dummitt was sitting out a tripping penalty.

Leckie now leads the team in scoring with ten goals and eight assists for eighteen points.

"It's tough coming off a layoff like that," coach Tim Taylor said after the game. "We only had two practices before this game. I also switched the first two lines around and the players had to adjust to that," Taylor said.

"But with a 7-2 record we're doing pretty good," Taylor added.