M. Hockey Has Whale Of A Time At Yale

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Many Harvard hockey teams have traveled to the Yale Whale since 1959. Few have won.

With a 6-3 win over the No. 15 Bulldogs on Saturday night, the No. 12 Crimson emerged from New Haven with a victory for just the third time since 1987.

That victory, together with a 6-3 win over Princeton the night before, gave Harvard (9-3-0, 9-2-0 ECAC) its fourth weekend sweep of the young season. Harvard is now in sole possession of first place, four points ahead of Yale.

“This was a major step forward against a major rival,” said coach Mark Mazzoleni after the Yale win. “We were playing for first place in their building, and I think we showed a lot of poise.”

The sweep was the Crimson’s first on the road against Princeton (1-12-0, 1-9-0) and Yale (7-4-0, 7-3-0) since Mazzoleni’s first season three years ago, and it marked the first time in 15 years that Harvard has won all four games on the Princeton-Yale and Clarkson-St. Lawrence road trips.

“We’ve had a pretty tough start to the season, since we’ve been on the road seven of our 11 league games,” said junior forward Tim Pettit, who had six assists on the weekend, bumping his ECAC-leading point total to 19. “We’ve had all of these tough road trips, but we’re pretty happy at this point with what we’ve accomplished so far.”

Harvard 6, Yale 3

Harvard never trailed against the Bulldogs, but the Crimson still needed a pair of third-period goals to erase Yale’s hopes of a comeback.

With Harvard clinging to a one-goal lead midway through the third period, junior winger Dennis Packard slid a low screened shot past Yale goaltender Peter Cohen to make it 5-3 with 11:58 left in the game.

“That fifth goal kind of broke our back,” said Yale coach Tim Taylor ’63, whose alma mater kept him at career win No. 299 for at least one more game.

Senior center Brett Nowak, a New Haven native, added an empty-net goal with 1:02 remaining.

After the Crimson took an early 2-0 lead, Yale rallied to tie the game, 2-2, 6:44 into the second period.

“We definitely knew Yale was a dangerous team,” Pettit said.

Enter Harvard sophomore Brendan Bernakevitch, who had just three career goals going into the game and had centered the fourth line the night before against Princeton.

Given another opportunity on the top line Saturday, Bernakevitch responded with a pair of timely goals.

Just 35 seconds after Yale junior forward Vin Hellemeyer score to tie the game, 2-2, Bernakevitch won a one-on-one puck battle in the corner, walked the puck to the doorstep and backhanded it over Cohen to quickly stop the Bulldogs’ rally.

But Bernakevitch didn’t stop there. He scored his second of the period with 8:38 remaining to give Harvard a 4-2 lead.

And in a span of just over four minutes, he’d given the Crimson back its two-goal lead and silenced the sellout crowd of 3,486 at Ingalls.

“I think he’s getting his confidence back,” Pettit said of Bernakevitch. “He knows he can be a dominating force down low. That was great to see.”

Bernakevitch nearly had a natural hat trick in the second period. His one-timer from the top of the right circle with 5:30 left clanged off the crossbar and fell on the blue side of Yale’s goal line before Cohen kicked it out.

The Crimson dominated play in the first period, scoring twice, deflecting two shots off the post, and allowing the Bulldogs only two scoring chances, neither of which resulted in a goal.

Harvard jumped to an early lead just 1:30 into the game when captain Dominic Moore, the game’s leading scorer with four points, bounced a sharp-angle shot off the post and into the cage behind Cohen on the power play.

“There’s definitely the thought of getting on the board early,” Pettit said. “When you do that, your confidence just rises and everyone feels more comfortable on the ice. We’re the ones who want to set the pace of the game, and make them play our game, and we’ve been able to establish that most of this year.”

The Crimson took a 2-0 lead with 35 seconds left in the first period when sophomore center Tom Cavanagh put back Kenny Smith’s shot from the point just five seconds after Yale finished killing off a roughing penalty to defenseman Joe Callahan.

“Harvard had a real edge in the first period,” Taylor said. “The timing of those two goals was very tough for us.”

Harvard 6, Princeton 3

The scores on Friday and Saturday night might have been the same, but the games were very different.

Although Yale kept it close until the final minutes, Princeton was never really in this game. Harvard dominated the Tigers early, storming out to a 4-0 lead and never relenquishing it.

“This is a big victory for us,” Mazzoleni said after watching his team outshoot Princeton, 46-10. “We’ve had a lot of trouble in this building. It hasn’t been real kind to us, so to have a victory here was big for us tonight.”

Mazzoleni told his team after the game that he was pleased to see how many one-on-one puck battles the Crimson won, estimating that the figure was around 70 percent.

“You need to play with that sense of urgency, especially in someone else’s building,” Mazzoleni said. “You need to step up and establish that sense of energy, and I think we did that.”

Midway through the third period, the Tigers cut the Crimson’s lead to 5-3 with a pair of goals from sophomore winger Chris Owen and freshman defenseman Seamus Young just 2:02 apart.

The Crimson tightened up defensively, though, and junior forward Rob Fried potted an empty-netter with 47 seconds left to ice it.

Harvard freshman goaltender John Daigneau stopped seven of the 10 shots he faced in his collegiate debut.

“I thought he did a good job,” said Mazzoleni, a former goaltender himself. “On the first goal, the kid made a good shot, and the other two were point shots. That’s still an area where we need to improve [defensively]—our ability in front of the net. Goalies can’t stop what they can’t see.”

Pettit finished with five assists on the night, while Nowak, Fried and sophomore defensemen Noah Welch each had a goal and an assist.

—Staff writer Jon P. Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.

M. HOCKEY 6, Yale 3

at Ingalls Rink

Harvard (9-3-0, 9-2-0 ECAC) 2 2 2 — 6

Yale (7-4-0, 7-3-0 ECAC) 0 2 1 — 3

First Period: H, Moore (Welch, Nowak), 1:30 (PPG). H, Cavanagh (Smith), 19:25. Second Period: Y, Steeves (Jensen, Wax), 0:42. Y, Hellemeyer (Higgins), 6:44. H, Bernakevitch (Moore), 7:19. H, Bernakevitch (Packard, Moore), 11:22 (GWG). Third Period: Y, Wax (Jensen, Steeves), 1:20 (PPG). H, Packard (Moore), 8:02. H, Nowak (Pettit), 18:54 (ENG).

Shots: H 10-11-11 32, Y 5-16-12 33. Powerplay: H 1-5, Y 1-4. Goalies: H Grumet-Morris (33-30), Y Cohen (31-26). A: 3,486.

M. HOCKEY 6, Princeton 3

at Hobey Baker Rink

Harvard (8-3-0, 8-2-0 ECAC) 2 2 2 — 6

Princeton (1-11-0, 1-8-0 ECAC) 0 1 2 — 3

First Period: H, Lannon (Nowak, Pettit), 12:05 (SHG). H, Nowak (Walsh, Pettit), 18:22. Second Period: H, Kolarik (Pettit, Nowak), 2:48 (PPG). H, Cavanagh (Moore), 8:59 (GWG). P, Owen (Fitzpatrick, Patton), 12:20. Third Period: H, Welch (Pettit, Fried), 9:45. P, Young (Stevenson-Moore, Neundorfer), 10:16. P, Own (Fitzpatrick), 12:18. H, Fried (Pettit, Welch), 19:13 (ENG). Shots: H 17-16-13 46, P 3-3-4 10. Powerplay: H 1-6, P 0-6. Goalies: H Daigneau (10-7), P Leroux (16-14), P Clay (17-15), P Nomeland (11-10). A: 1,761.