Icemen Drop Both Weekend Contests, 3-1 to Saints and 8-1 to Golden Knights

They say it's a long way to Tipperary. The Harvard hockey team found out this weekend that it's also a long way to the quaint upper New York State towns of Canton and Pottsdam, the homes of St. Lawrence and Clarkson, respectively.

And after losses to the seventh- and second-ranked teams in the country, the icemen discovered that the ride back is even longer.

Seventh-ranked St. Lawrence greeted the travel-weary icemen, 3-1, on Friday, and number-two Clarkson aired them out for the ride home, 8-1, on Saturday night.

The pair of losses drops the Crimson's ECAC record to 5-6-1 (5-8-1 overall). After an encouraging and somewhat surprising 5-3-1 ECAC start, the icemen have lost three straight conference games (five overall) and are winless in their last six. As quickly as the icemen had cometh, they wenteth away.

On Friday night, two tripping penalties helpd to trip up the Crimson.

Harvard's first guilty party was defense-man Mark Fusco, who went off at 3:16 of the opening stanza. Just eight seconds later, after a face-off in the circle to the right of Wade Lau, Saint Steve Rich pushed the puck past the Crimson netminderfor an early 1-0 St. Lawrence leader.

The second trip, on Tony Visone, came at 19:27 of the first period, but the Harvard penalty killers sent the Saints to the locker room emptyhanded.

Harvard continued to thwart the Saint power play in the opening moments of the second period, and even killed off the penalty, but only moments after Visone stepped on the ice--with the Saints still essentially a man up--St. Lawrence freshman Paul Castron scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal.

St. Lawrence (now 4-2 ECAC, 11-4 overall) added an insurance tally late in the second period, and Visone added the Crimson's lone score midway through the third.

"On Friday night, we just plain stunk," said Crimson captain Mike Watson.

Saturday night's score would indicate that the Crimson wasn't much better, but the icemen actually hung tough for two periods, and only four Clarkson tallies in the final 20 minutes put the game into the card catalog under blow-out.

For the Golden Knights (by far, the ECAC's best team nickname) sophomore Jim O'Meara scored two goals and added an assist, classmate and linemate Pat Haramis added a goal and three assists, and senior Steve Cruickshank notched two goals and an assist. "They've got some very, very good shooters," Lau said. "The best we've seen this year."

The turning point in the game came early in period two. A delayed penalty was called on Harvard's Greg Britz, and the Golden Knights scored after holding the puck for more than 30 seconds. Or did they hold it that long?

"Visone intercepted a Clarkson pass (which should have blown the play dead)," Watson said, "and then had a shot on net. The ref didn't blow the whistle, and Clarkson broke out and scored." The goal gave the Golden Knights a 3-1 lead.