Skaters Drift to 5-4 Loss At Hands of Northeastern

Northeastern scored a 5-4 upset victory over the Harvard hockey team before 1700 people at Watson Rink Saturday night, reversing the overtime score of the teams' first meeting. As in the Christmas Tournament, the Huskies took advantage of the Crimson's listlessness to build a 4-2 lead after two periods. But this time, Northeastern added a third-period marker to make Harvard's comeback bid fall short.

N.U.'s Bob MacCauseland took the puck away from a Harvard forward in front of the cage and slid it under goalie Bill Diercks for the game's first goal, seven minutes after the opening faceoff.

Chip Otness set up Harvard's counter two minutes later when he turned on his speed to carry the puck around defenseman Don Turcotte, a not inconsiderable feat Otness repeated several times. Otness's try after circling the cage was blocked, but from there Dwight Ware muck the puck behind goalie Gary Thornon.

Turcotte got this one back at 12:42 when an untried defense tandem of Ben Smith and Dennis Clark let him between them for a clear shot on goal.

Junkman Scores

Two minutes later, junkman Pete Walinger, who is second in goals only to Kent Parrot without having been part of a regular line all season, scored his seventh goal to even matters. Skating across the crease, Waldinger deflected a pass from Tag Demment behind him and past Thornton. Otness also got an assist.

Turcotte gave the Huskies the lead for good at 3:15 of the second period with 45-foot shot that the screened Diercks didn't even see.

The Crimson could blame bad luck, for a change, on Northeastern's next goal. After a rough 90 seconds during which he was hit hard in his defensive zone, and missed goals on two nice plays with Barry Johnson, Parrot took a hard slap shot, only to have his stick splinter when it hit the puck. Parrot then took a swing in frustration in the general direction of a Huskie defenseman and was whistled known both for playing the puck with a broken stick and slashing, and sent off lie ice for a total of five minutes.

Rebound

The Crimson killed two-and-a-half minutes of the penalty before Phil O'Connell put a rebound off the back boards at the far side of the cage, with Turcotte and John Leger getting assists.

The most encouraging goal of the night came at 2:44 of the third period. It seemed to signal a comeback, and it was the first varsity goal for Barry Johnson. The sophomore left wing had been frustrated time and again while his mates on the first line had scored six goals the last two games.

Parrot and Pete Mueller set up Johnson's well aimed flip from a sharp angle to Thornton's right.

The comeback lasted three minutes. At 5:58 Phil O'Connell shot through the third successive tangle in front of Diercks into the nets.

The next 13 minutes were pathetic. Harvard's attack systematically disintegrated at the blue line and didn't produce a single shot even when the Huskies were a man down. (Thornton recorded 3 saves for the entire period.) The only effective checking was inappropriately directed at the Northeastern goalie.

Last Drive

With 28 seconds remaining, Smith sent a bouncing 30-foot shot past Thornton and Harvard hopes flickered. The Crimson mounted a last drive, and a pass from Otness gave Smith a shot at the goal's upper left corner. It went wide, and the buzzer sounded a 5-4 defeat.

The return to action of Bob Fredo compensated for the loss Thursday of George Murphy with a ruptured kidney and -- in Wednesday's game -- of Bobby Bauer. The Cooney shuffle had its biggest night of the season, but probably none of Coach Weiland's combination would have come out "t--e--a--m" last night.