Harvard Six Trips St. Nick's 5-3

What looks like the first good hockey team in three years is taking form under the guiding hands of Coach Clark Hodder and Captain Greely Summers. Behind 3 to 0 before the first period was half over, the Crimson bounced back in form to score a convincing 5 to 3 overtime victory at the expense of the St. Nicholas Hockey Club, last year's A. A. U. champs, in the Boston Skating Club Saturday night.

The squad as a whole showed a great improvement over anything seen last year and the outlook for the coming season brightened perceptibly as the Hoddermen applied the "team that won't be beaten can't be beaten" principle with satisfactory results.

O'Neill Stars in Nets

Individual honors were widely distributed, Probably red-headed "Stove" (his real name is Grover) O'Neill deserves a lion's share. Stove came into the Crimson nets at the beginning of the second period and blanked the visitors in convincing form for the remaining 50 minutes. His Sophomore classmate, Al Everts, broke up the game with a brace of tallies in the overtime, and George Gebelein also had two counters to his credit.

Senior Chuck Griffith, who played House hockey all last year, broke into Varsity competition when he subbed for George Dreher at one of the defense posts, and his scrappy play drew Hodder's praise.

Defense Weak at First

Early in the game the Crimson defense was too widely spaced, and accounted in some measure for the early St. Nick's edge. This, and the fact that the St. Nick's strategy was to pour on pressure early and then coast through the rest of the game, gave starting goalie Ab Fenn a difficult night in the nets.

Throughout the game the Crimson kept the puck in the St. Nick's zone most of the time, but the team lacked scoring punch until late in the game. During the time they were behind, and Harvard did not tie the game up until three minutes before the end of regulation playing time, the Hoddermen kept on driving with spirit not seen all last year, and their efforts were rewarded in a most gratifying fashion.

Gebelein Starts Surge

With time rapidly running out and the visitors on the long side of a 3 to 1 count, the Crimson finally clicked. First George Gebelein, who scored the Crimson's first goal on Johnny Paine's first period pass from behind the cage, scored again. Gordy McGrath, left wing on the starting line, fired the disc in on the St. Nick's goaler, who cleared it poorly. Gobelein was waiting for the rebound and had little trouble in backhanding the puck into an open net.

Two minutes later Dreher fired from just inside the blue line on the left boards, and his shot found its mark high in the right-hand corner of the goal for the tying score.

In the overtime St. Nick's stopped coasting and put on the pressure, and only a "prayer mat" stop by O'Neill kept them from going out in front. Al Everts, center of the Sophomore trio, put the Crimson ahead 4 to 3 when he batted the puck past the goaler in a scrimmage in front of the crease. In spite of the obvious teamwork on this play the officials did not give credit for an assist, although probably both of Evert's wingmen deserved credit.

St. Nick's came back strongly and carried the game to O'Neill, who remained impregnable. Everts scored the final goal just 25 seconds before the game's end when he jumped the opposition and raced down the ice on a brilliant solo scoring spree.

Neither Stacy Hulse nor Fred Mosely, the two Crimson alumni on the St. Nick's squad, figured in the scoring, but both were prominent throughout the game, as the St. Nick's had but two lines with which to oppose the spirited Crimson squad, and Hodder used 18 men.