Two Goalies, No Sieves

Yale's hockey uniforms still don't have the players names on the back so Eli goalie Paul Tortorella escaped the customary unnerving chanting of his name by various unfriendly observers behind his back Saturday night.

You'd think Harvard tans would know his name by now After all he's probably given the Crimson skaters more trouble than any other ECAC player in the past two seasons. Despite a 3 4 overall goals against average last year and this, he has posted a 1 5 mark in his four games versus Harvard.

And though the Elis left Bright Center as losers, their playoff berth in danger, the Crimson still hadn't really solved the Tortorella puzzle Camillus. N.Y's most famous native had stopped 30 of Harvard's 32 shots.

The "book" on the junior netminder, as Crimson Coach Bill Cleary described it to his players, is to shoot low to the stick side from far out and to shoot high from in close. "When you get in close he drops down on you," noted Scott Fusco, who scored Harvard's second goal. "He doesn't really move, he just takes up a lot of room."

Certainly, the book has been accurate in Harvard-Yale games. In Yale's 5-0 dismantling of the Crimson earlier this month in New Haven. Tortorella made a key glove save on a Shayne Kukulowiez shot just before the Elis four-goal second period explosion. But in last year's 1-1 tie at Bright. Harvard's only red light was a low Alan Litchfield blast from the point which hit Tortorella's stick-side pad and bounced in and Mark Fusco's game-winner Saturday night followed the same route.

Blanks

While the Crimson was hammering away at Tortorella's few weak spots to eke out two goals. Harvard's Grant Blair--scored upon just three times in his last three games--was blanking the very same Elis who had shelled him two weeks earlier. As Bright center fans know. Blair usually stays on his feet, but he wanders out of the net a little often.

Yet there he was Saturday, forsaking the nomad's life to rob the Bulldogs on their few good chances. At the game's midway point, Eli right wing Sean Neely raced down the middle with the puck: Blair stayed put and Neely shot wide Five minutes later, he stead-fastly clung to the goal post to deny Yale's leading scorer. Bob Brooke, the near side shot And halfway through the final stanza, he made a sprawling save on winger George Minowada, a play both coaches talked about after the game.

One Eli did put something past Blair, though. Late in the second period, center Randy Wood lost his balance while chasing a loose puck, eluded Blair on his glove side and slammed into the back of the net.