Saturday night at Bright, The Red Raiders of Colgate played with tons
of energy, but ended up tying the Harvard Crimson 3-3.  Harvard
looked like they had gotten carried away with the spirit of THE GAME
(American football) and rarely looked sharp.  Colgate showed a lot
of hustle and I was expecting them to win the game.
 
In the first period, the Red Raiders came out fast.  However for all
their fine skating, the attack was mainly dump and chase, which lead
to no reward.  Bryan Lonsinger (Brad Konik, Ashlin Halfnight) opened
the scoring for Harvard when he shot home a rebound.  Halfnight had
been whirling around the zone, and after a couple of shots by Konik,
the pressure proved to be too much.  In the second period, Cory
Gustafson (Perry Cohagan, Lonsinger) scored during a four on four
situation.  Cohagan had carried the puck wide into the zone and his
good feed let Gustafson roof the puck.  At that point, Harvard looked
like they thought they had weathered the storm surge of the Red
Raiders, and that their team defense who see them through.  However
at the start of the third Colgate struck for two goals within the
opening 64 seconds.  Earl Cronan (Ron Fogarty) drilled a long low
slap shot past Tripp Tracy from the left wing boards.  The play
developed off a simple break in.  Jack McIntosh (Mike Harder) tied
the match when he converted a nice setup in the right slot high
into the back of the net.  Brad Dexter (Bill Baaki, Dru Brugess) gave
Colagte a 2-3 lead on another high shot.  The play came from a
face-off, where Harvard seems to be napping these days.  The Crimson
then slowly started to get back in it.  The resulting pressure produced
a series of break in plays.  Kirk Nielsen (Joe Craigen, Halfnight)
finally poked in a rebound with Red Raiders sprawled all over the
ice in an attempt to block shots.  In overtime there was no scoring,
but plenty of dirty, forgettable play.
 
Colgate has a good team.  All of their defenders move the puck very
well.  With the skating ability they had last night they could, if
they had some direction, produce a very interesting offense.  Todd
Murphy was a very strong defender.  Dexter was another blue liner
who showed good vision.  The top line of Cronan, Harder and Fogarty
are excellent.  I really liked Fogarty who can motor.  I have to
think if he and the rest of his forwards were given a more positive
attacking style that they would flourish.
 
Harvard seemed happy to just stop the other team and use the hope and
pray "offense".  The Crimson were without Steve Martins and Brian
Famigletti.  While they are two of the better players on the team,
Harvard still had enough bodies to play much better than they did.
Instead, when Colgate took the lead we got panic-in-the-streets
line shifting.  Without much of an offense, no combination of players
is going to get you anywhere.  I thought first-year replacement
defender Jeremiah McCarthy was the outstanding player for Harvard.
I have seen him play twice now, and he deserves to be playing all
the time.  A solid defensive defender, he came through perfectly.
Halfnight was letting it rip and showing a lot of composure under
fire from the Red Raiders.  Doug Sproule got his chance on the top
line and came out flying.  This kid, with some polish, could be a
wonderful player for Harvard.  Marco Ferrari, Henry Higdon and Stu
Swenson played very well as a unit.  First-year player Higdon had
a very good weekend and should get more ice time.  Nielsen put on
some moves, but at this point seems to be lacking enough drive to
become the quality center he could be.  Konik made a number of
smart plays, but also could use more drive.  Gustafson did pick
up his game to fill the gaps last night, and made a lovely pass
to the breaking Halfnight on the edge of the goal crease, late
in the game.  Overall, the attitude of Harvard has gotten them
where they are.  On paper they still look very strong.  On Tuesday
night against BU it should be interesting to see if the players
can rally themselves.
 
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 good shooting
 rhun
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