NOTEBOOK: Quick Goals Doom Crimson Comeback

As conference rivals Harvard and No. 10 Cornell clashed for the second time this season, the game of 60 minutes came down to 25 decisive seconds. In that short span of the second period, the Big Red took an unanswered two-goal lead. Both the Crimson and Cornell battled through a scoreless first period, although the Big Red held a dominant 11-6 shot advantage.

Junior goaltender Kyle Richter had two penalty kills on Cornell’s consecutive power plays to preserve a blank scoreboard, which Harvard was able to maintain until halfway through the second period. It was at that point that the Big Red launched an offensive attack—one that lasted less than a minute but crippled the Crimson for the remainder of the game. The first blow came 10:14 into the period, when junior Tyler Roeszler connected with teammate Nick D’Agostino to net the opening goal of the night.

Roeszler’s goal was followed only 25 seconds later by another from sophomore Ross Keir off of an assist by Riley Nash. Although Harvard would try for a comeback in the third period, a final goal from forward Blake Gallagher with 21.6 seconds left in the game on an open net guaranteed the Cornell victory. The score was representative of a match where one team held the momentum, established a strong defensive front, and carried the intensity of a longtime Ivy rivalry.

IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT

After each of the Big Red’s three goals, its abundant and rowdy fans would point at Richter and taunt, “It’s all your fault.”

But the cheer was far from the truth. Richter had to defend against a team that came out hitting hard, that constantly kept pressure on a Crimson defense that had trouble clearing the puck from its half, and that dominated in the shot count. The junior posted 19 of his 23 saves in the first two periods—one of the only reasons his team even had a fighting chance against Cornell.

“I think Kyle was solid in net...[But] in the first two periods, we just didn’t battle hard enough,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91.

The final goal, scored by the Big Red in the waning seconds of the third period, actually had nothing to do with Richter, who had been substituted in favor of another attacker. The open net and—at times—lackluster defense held more accountability for the goals than Richter.

SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS

The shot count posted by the Crimson in the first two periods epitomizes why it could not score and why the majority of the game’s momentum came from Cornell’s end. Harvard was only able to establish six shots in the first period and two in the second, compared to the Big Red’s 22 in the same time.

“They were playing with the momentum for the better part of two periods,” captain Alex Biega said.

Donato also noted that the Big Red shut down the Harvard offense, blocking a number of the Crimson’s shots before they even reached the net.

Fourteen, in fact, was the staggering number of blocks executed by the Big Red over the course of the opening two periods.

But the third period was a completely different story for Harvard. Without much momentum in the early part of the game, the Crimson came out in the final period and put up a strong fight to try and overcome the two goal deficit that stood in the way of an upset against its Ivy rival.

Harvard put 14 shots on the net—nearly twice the number of the first two periods combined—only to have them all blocked by Big Red defenders or saved by Cornell’s senior goaltender Ben Scrivens. Although the surge in the final period proved to be insufficient for a Crimson victory, it was a surprisingly bright spot in an otherwise bleak, one-sided game.

“The third period was much better for us,” Richter said. “I think there’s some positive for us to take into the next game and the remainder of the season.”

—Staff writer B. Marjorie Gullick can be reached at gullick@college.harvard.edu.