Undefeated Saints Take One From Icemen, 4-3

"It's the way college hockey seems to go The puck bounces the wrong way, and there goes the game." --Harvard defenseman Mark Fusco

Things couldn't have gone much more right for the Harvard hockey team through 57 minutes of playing time Friday night against undefeated (ECAC) St. Lawrence before 3300 at Bright Center.

Mark Fusco, the Crimson's All-American blueliner, had his best game of the season, twice carrying the puck from his own net into the offensive zone and grooving nasty slap-shots between the pads of defenseless netminder Gray Weicker.

The Harvard power play hit at a sizzling 60 percent efficiency, accounting for all three Crimson tallies.

Freshman goaltender Grant Blair stopped 26 Saint shots, a lot of them true testers that he swept away with flourishing pad and skate saves.

The Crimson was playing the Saints even, and then some.

But the goal that never was, and the pass that never should have been, turned Harvard's stellar performance into a 4-3 loss to the now 7-0 Saints (they beat Yale, 4-3, Saturday night in New Haven).

The loss was Harvard's third straight, dropping its record to 6-3-1 in the conference (8 4-1 overall) After Brown toppled Cornell, 4-1. Saturday night in Providence, however, the Crimson moved back into first place in the ECAC's Ivy Division.

St. Lawrence sophomore center Paul Castron notched the game-winning goal, intercepting a Gary Martin centering pass just out side the Harvard blueline, skating in on Blair alone and beating the Crimson netminder high and to Blair's right with a blistering snapshot at 18 09 of the third period.

Harvard had tied the score at three on Fusco's second tally just six minutes earlier.

In the final 1 50 of play, St. Lawrence consistently cleared the puck out of its own zone, preventing Harvard Coach Bill Cleary from pulling Blair and adding a sixth attacker to try for the equalizer and overtime.

"If we'd gone into overtime," Cleary said. "We would have had 'em."

Harvard had the only goal in the first period, when defenseman Mitch Olson slipped his second goal of the season between Weicker's pads from about six feet out at 14:36.

St. Lawrence evened things up quickly at the start of round two, however Scott Fusco had gone off for high-sticking at 19 08 of the first (just one of referee John Galipeau's many boners on the evening), and was still out when Saint center Ray Shero slid the puck into an empty net at 1.01.

The Saints wrapped two more second-period scores around Mark Fusco's first tally to take a 3-2 lead, but it was the puck that didn't go in that marked the second period.

Martin, alone in front of Weicker, took a crossing pass from linemate Jay North, turned and fired a low drive at the wide open net Everyone in the crowd and press box thought goal, but Weicker, who had dived in the direction of the shot, calmly opened his glove and let the puck fall to the ice.