'Holy Comeback' for Icemen

CANTON, N.Y.--There was 1:04 to play in overtime, and just before Harvard forward Perry Cohagan hunched over to take a face-off directly to the left of St. Lawrence goalie Paul Spagnoletti, linemate Brian Farrell came over to give him a little luck o' the Irish.

"He just said, 'Win it to me,' and, well, I trust him," Cohagan recalled.

Trust him he might have--it was Farrell's work that had led to this overtime, scoring a heart-stopping goal which tied the game at 4-4 as the third-period clock revealed but four seconds to play.

And win this face-off Cohagan did. Farrell drove straight to the net with the puck as his linemate moved off to the side, putting Cohagan in position to find a rebound in heavy traffic and whip a quick wrist-shot towards the open left corner of the net.

"[Spagnoletti] made probably his best save of the game on [my shot]," Cohagan said. But the puck still trickled towards the net.

And the Saint senior, playing the final home game of his collegiate career, could only reach out with the butt end of his stick...and finish Cohagan's job for him, knocking the puck into the net.

"Holy moly," was all Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni was able to say. "That was the strangest game...As I said to [assistant coach] Jerry [Pawlowski '88], I think I've never, ever been involved in a game like this, from the start to the finish--it was just wild."

And so the Harvard bench stormed the ice, 19 days after it had sat in stunned silence when Boston College upset the Crimson in the Beanpot tournament final. The fickle finger of fate was now back, pointing to its proper side.

The scoreline read 5-4 in favor of Harvard (19-4-4, 16-2-4 ECAC), and for all the agony that St. Lawrence (10-20-0, 8-14-0) must have felt on the way to its dressing room, the sheer joy on the faces of the Crimson seemed to justify every bit of it.

"We're ecstatic," captain Sean McCann said after the game. "The fact that we never stopped working, we kept going after them...we had to fight a lot out there, and nobody wanted to take that long drive back home with a tie and a loss."

One day after a well-played 2-2 tie at Clarkson, Harvard desperately needed a win to avoid the same, momentum-draining outcome of last year's final weekend: a tie against the Knights, a loss to the Saints.

But as Tomassoni indicated, it was a weird game from start to finish; aside from nail-biting, last-second drama, this game had few elements of a classic.

"There was no flow, ever, with all the penalties that were being called," Cohagan said.

Steve Martins himself had a major and four minors (for 27 penalty minutes on the weekend).

For a while, "it looked like whoever had the last power play would win the game," as Tomassoni said.

All eight goals in regulation came on the power play, each team going 4-for-8 with the man advantage. Coming one night after Harvard went 0-for-9 while a man up at Clarkson, such a trade-off wasn't necessarily a bad thing to McCann.

"We were moving the puck much better tonight, not holding onto it as much," he said. "We got together and discussed the power play before the game and decided that the best thing was to pass the puck quickly and find the openings on goal."

That happened four times--once each for Martins, McCann, Chris Baird and Farrell, Martins' 1-2-3 evening earned him the ECAC scoring title, by three points over Clarkson's Craig Conroy.

McCann's goal netted him the Harvard record for goals by a defenseman in a season, tying Dick Greeley's 1947-48 mark with 16.

And Farrell's goal...that was something else.

With the Saint's Brian McCarthy in the box for a late roughing call, and with goalie Aaron Israel (19 saves) pulled for an extra attacker, the Crimson had set up a 6-on-4 situation.

"The puck hopped over my stick in front," Farrell said, "and as soon as it rolled to the corner I knew right away that I was going to go get it and try to put it front and back it off the goalie."

It worked exactly that way, as Farrell scrambled to the left goal-line and flicked the puck off of the inside of Spagnoletti's left pad and through the five-hole.

"It didn't look good, but we didn't quit," Tomassoni said. "As long as you've got one second left on the clock, you've still got a shot."

HARVARD, 5-4 (in OT) at Appleton Arena Harvard  2  1  1  1  --  5 St. Lawrence  2  2  0  0  --  4

First Period

Har--Martins 20 (Lonsinger, McCann) 9:12. (PP)

SLU--McCarthy 10 (Kungle, Meany) 10:49. (PP)

SLU--McCourt 5 (Laamanen, McCarthy) 13:09. (PP)

Har--McCann 16 (Martins, Farrell) 18:27. (PP)

Second Period

Har--Baird 5 (Maguire, Craigen) 5:34. (PP)

SLU--Allain 7 (Murphy, Stevens) 7:09. (PP)

SLU--Murphy 20 (Allain, Stevens) 15:34. (PP)

Third Period

Har--Farrell 25 (Martins, Maguire) 19:56. (PP)

Overtime

Har--Cohagan 2 (Baird, Farrell) 4:04.

Saves: Har--Israel 19; SLU--Spagnoletti 42.

Power Play: Har--4 for 8; SLU--4 for 8.