Icemen Storm Back, Tie Brown

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--At 10:22 of the third period Saturday night, the Harvard men's hockey team appeared to turn a corner.

Sophomore forward Steve Moore had just one-timed a pass from junior forward Rob Millar for his second goal of the night, and the Crimson's fourth of the period, completing an improbable comeback from a 3-0 deficit at the start of the third into a 4-3 lead over Brown (1-3-2,1-3-2 ECAC). HARVARD  4 BROWN  4

Harvard (2-5-1, 0-5-1 ECAC) seemed poised to capture its first divisional win of the season and, more importantly, coupled with its 5-3 victory over Boston University last Tuesday, seemed on course to right its sinking ship.

Almost.

With just one minute and four seconds remaining, Brown forward James Duval fought off the poke-check of sophomore goaltender Oliver Jonas to send the game into an inconclusive overtime for a 4-4 tie at Meehan Auditorium. Harvard captured its first divisional point of the season, but still remained without an ECAC victory.

"It was a heckuva comeback," said Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni. "We showed a lot of character. It was disappointing that we had them and we let them tie it up."

A mix-up in defensive assignments off the face-off left Duval unguarded at the top right of the crease. This put him in the perfect position to pick up the rebound off defenseman Christian Warrington's shot from the right point. Jonas lunged to knock the puck off Duval's stick, but Duval maintained possession and skated around the sprawled goaltender to knot the game at four.

"We had a bad bounce on the face-off," Moore said. "We made some mistakes and a couple of our guys lost their men."

Duval's goal diminished but did not erase a magnificent Crimson comeback sparked by Moore 1:41 into the period.

While shorthanded, Moore led a 2-on-2 rush down the ice. He stick-handled around Bear forward Michael Bent and rifled a shot over goaltender Scott Stirling's Glove to break Harvard out of its game-long funk.

"We were spinning our wheels in the first two periods," Moore said. "I was just trying to get something going for us."

On its second goal, Harvard caught a break.

A blind centering pass by captain Craig Adams from the back of the right face-off circle deflected off the skate of a Brown defenseman and went between Stirling's pads.

Adams would score a more legitimate goal at 11:47 on the power play. Moore wheeled into the middle and hit Adams standing at side of the goal with a sharp pass. The captain sent the feed through B-2 HOCKEY