Icemen Work Overtime

ITHACA and HAMILTON, ION, N.Y. Junior Scott Tusco scored with 1:11 remaining in overtime to give the undefeated Harvard men's hockey team a 6-3 come from-behind triumph over Colgate last night at Starr Rink.

The victory came on the heels of a performance by goalie Grant Blair that allowed the squad to escape from Cornell's Lynah Rink with a 5:5 overtime tie Saturday night.

The junior's 49 save before a relentlessly hostile crowd of 4100 set a new Harvard single-game record.

The Crimson, now 7-0-1 (5-0-1, FCAC) remains the only unbeaten, team in Division 1, in sole possession of first place in the ECAC.

At 19:05 of yesterday's third period, trailing 5-4, Harvard Coach Bill Cleary pulled net minder Grant Blair and replaced him with a sixth skater, Fusco then won a faceoff in the Colgate zone, and led the puck to Mark Banning at the right point.

Benning slid the puck to Brian Buscon tempotarily shifted to the blue line, and the senior let loose with a low, hard shot.

Peter Follows, the extra Crimson attracker, deflected the puck in past Red Raider goalie Jeff Cooper, giving the Crimson new life with most 55 seconds left in regulation.

With 1:19 to go in the ensuing up-and down overtime, Fusco's line took to the ice. The junior center won a right circle faceoff and the puck scooted to freshman wing Lane MacDonald in the corner.

MacDonald led Fusco right in from, and the Crimson's leading scorer banged it home for the Harvard victory.

"Lane went into the corner and threw it behind the back," Fusco said, "The only place I could go was between his [Cooper's] legs, and it dribbled in."

Fusco's beautiful move spoiled a remarkable night for Cooper in the Colgate net. The goalie recorded 40 saves and kept his team in the game on several occasions.

Despite Cooper's best efforts, however, Harvard's first line continued its remarkable success.

Fusco had two goals and two assists on the evening, extending his multiple point game streak to seven. The junior now has 11 goals and 11 assists on the year for 22 points, four more than last season's leading scorer's total for the year.

Tim Smith upped his goal scoring streak to eight straight games (the Harvard record, held by Coach Cleary, is 15). With a score and three assists on the night. Smith now has nine goals and six assists MacDonald picked up two goals and two assists on the evening.

The freshman played against his brother Lowell, a Colgate sophomore, who noticed, a goal between his brother's two first period rallies.

The Crimson iceman looked tired from then marathon efforts at Cornell the night before.

"It's nice to win when you don't play well." Cleary said. "We showed some courage, some chutzpah, in coming back.

"The game last night look a lot more out of us than we thought."

Harvard's 138 minutes of hockey in the course of the two overtime contests would take a lot out of any one.

Exhaustion

In Saturday's game, after a furious second period that saw the teams tally seven times, the Crimson held a 5-4 advantage.

After almost 19 scoreless minutes of the third period. Cornell's Duanne Moeser gunned home a puck that had squatted into the left circle. The two exhausted squads battled to a scoreless standstill in overtime.

Blair stopped a flurry of good Cornell shorts early in the over time stanza.

At 3:50 of the 10 minute sudden-death extra period, Crimson freshman Lane McDonald stole the puck from Moeser and broke in alone on Cornell goalie Doug Dadswell.

MacDonald stayed wide on the left wing and as Dadswell moved out, fired a low shot that clanged off the opposite post.

"He's pretty posed freshman," said Crimson Coach Bill Cleary. "But he took a shot from a bad angle, rather than going in [to the net]."

A few minutes later, Crimson Captain Brad Kwong hooked down a Cornell skater who seemed reads to scoot free on a breakaway. But referee Harry Amman didn't call the penalty.

"I was upset that the official didn't make the hooking call." Cornell Coach Fou Reyeroft said after the game.

"He clearly saw it. It showed a lack of courage."

Failing to call the penalty against the visitors in front of thousands of screaming Lynah may have been wrong, but it certainly was courageous.

The entire evening was filled with controversy, as Amman disallowed an apparent goal for each of the teams.

At 3:09 of the final regulation period, Cornell swarmed close in around the Harvard net. After a scramble in the crease, the goal lit the red lamp and then turned it right off.

Amman immediately signaled "no goal" and his judgement stood, despite the protests of the Big Red.

"The puck never went in the net." Blair said.

Eleven minutes later, Amman said a Bills Cleary shot from the right point was opped in by MacDonald's stick, which was too high. However, it seemed that the biscuit might have bounced in off a Cornell shoulder, in which case the score would have stood up.

Despite the ruling, MacDonald and his linemates, Scott Fusco and Ian Smith, turned in yet another outstanding effort.

After Cornell jumped to a quick lead on a line play by Dave Hunter and Gary Cullen at 6:10, the Crimson's first line showed its great skating skill.

With Harvard's Tim Barakett in the penalty box for charging, Fusco stole the puck at center ice and knocked it ahead to MacDonald.

The duo worked a beautiful give and go that culminated in MacDonald banging in his own rebound for a shorthanded score that tied things up at one.

Two minutes into the second period, Cornell's John Wilson had an uncontested 15-11, shot from the right circle Blair, who had already recorded 19 saves in the first period, reached down and made an unreal glove stop on the low buller off Wilson's blade.

Blair's 49 saves broke his own record of 48, set a year ago against RPI in a game the Crimson lost, 6-0.

"It's the first night [this season] I got a lot of work." Blair said

A minute later, on the power play. Smith found the rebound of a Mark Banning slap shot on his blade and put it in.

The second assist on the score went to Barakett, filling in at tight point on the power play for the first time. He stood in for Randy Taylor, who suffered a separated shoulder last weekend against Western Ontario.

Two minutes after the Smith score, Wilson got his revenge on Blair, Working down the ice with Chris Norton, Wilson put the puck and his teammate the game at 2.

With a man from each team in the in bin, the Fusco-MacDonald combination struck again at 11-58.

After Fusco won a face off in the Cornell end. McDonald fed the puck back out to the junior from behind the net. The 1984 Olympian beat Dadswell between the legs from the slot for a 3-2 Harvard lead.

Cornell's Peter Natyshak scored a minute later after a Seramble in front of he net.

The Harvard fourth line got a crucial score just three minutes after that, when Peter Follows stole the puck at his own blue line and skated into the Cornell zone. He split Dadswell's skates from 35 feet out, giving his squad a 4-3 advantage.

Harvard's second line, which has been struggling of late, notched a score two minutes later, when Andy Janfaza (just back from a shoulder injury) led Peter Chrallei near the goal for a stuff shot and the two-goal lead.

It took Cornell eight seconds to get the Chairelli score back, as Natyshak broke in off the faccoif and look the feed from Joe Nicuwendyk for the quick shot and the goal.

"You never let em score in the last two minutes of a period." Blair said. "It's a cardinal rule of hockey."

The Crimson broke that cardinal rule again just over 20 minutes later, giving Cornell the tie.

"This is the hardest place in the nation for us to get a point," Blair said.

"It's a tough one to give up when you're here," Coach Cleary said. "But the freshmen hung right and did a hell of a job."

Over the two plus hours of playing time, particularly in the remarkable tie at Lynah, the entire squad did a hell of a job.

"It reminds me," Smith said, "of a certain team a couple of years ago."

Crimson,5-5at Ithaca, NYHarvard  1  1  4  0  0  5Cornell  1  3  1  0  5