Clarkson kept their regular season championship hopes alive with a big
win over Harvard Frday night at the Cheel Arena.
 
Goals:
Clarkson  2 1 1- 4
Harvard   1 1 0- 2
 
Goal Tending:
Clarkson: Currie (27 saves)
Harvard: Roy (26 saves)
 
Power-Plays:
Clarkson: 1 for 2
Harvard: 1 for 3
 
Scoring:
1st Period
1. Clarkson, Marchant (Robitaille, Torrey) 11:45
2. Harvard, Farrell (Cohagen, Coughlin) 13:40
3. Clarkson, Conroy (Marchant, Belanger) 18:45 (pp)
 
2nd Period
4. Harvard, Flomenhoft (Farrell, Burke) 8:09 (pp)
5. Clarkson, Sabo (Henrich) 16:52
 
3rd Period
6. Clarkson, Robitaille (Dubinsky, Thomas) 19:22 (eng)
 
It was a play-off level hockey game last night when Harvard played
Clarkson at a sold out Cheel Arena.  The game was filled with tough
checking, good scoring plays and great goal tending.  Ref Murphy let the
two teams play, calling only 5 penalties.  He really let the two teams
decide the outcome.  With the hard hitting going on, it would have been
easy to call more penalties.  Harvard had most of their scoring chances
in the first period.  This was because Clarkson fired up their
fore-checking and were all over the Crimson for the second and third
periods.  Harvard controlled the puck for the first half of te first
period, getting 6-7 shots to Clarkson's 1.  Atleast Currie was able to
see all of the shots and stop them.  Clarkson's Coach Morris had said
that they were going to try and redirect a lot of shots on Roy since he
was so hard to beat straight on.  That's what Marchant did to score the
first goal.  From the left side of Roy, Marchant redirected a Robitaille
shot just inside the left post (really just inside).  Less than two
minutes later, Harvard came out od their zone on a 3 on 2.  Farrell was
carrying the puck up the center and really just fired it past Currie
from about 25' out.  Currie was called to make several big saves
throughout the game.  He came up big early in the first period stopping
Harvard several times when they were on the power play.  It was
Clarkson's power play that converted on their first chance.  Belanger,
playing the point, skated to the center of the blue line and fired a
shot on Roy.  Roy made the intial save, but the rebound went out front
where Harvard was outmanned.  Conroy took two swipes at it a nd lifted
the second up and over Roy.  The second period saw the start of
Clarkson's dominating fore-checking.  They would give up only one goal,
that being a power-play goal to Flomenhoft, who squeezed a rebound
between Currie's legs.  The puck to a while to roll into the net (Currie
not having any of Sean Burke's luck).  From then on Clarkson dominated
the game and scoring, while dodging a few bullets here and there.
During the second Clarkson power-play, Tuomainen had the puck bounce on
to stick at the side of the goal with Roy down on the ice.  Tuomainen
fanned once and then dribbled a weak shot into a pile of players.  Ed
Sabo scored the game winning goal on a nice play.  Defenseman Ed Henrich
had come forward on the left side to prevent a clearing attempt.  He
worked the puck to the corner and then got away from a Harvard
defenseman to go behind the net.  From the right side of the net he
slipped a pass out the Sabo who was cutting in across the slot.  Sabo
received the pass and shot the puck into the empty side of the net.
Harvard came right back on a big rush that was stopped by Currie.  A
goal by Harvard at that point could have really turned the game around.
Instead of going into a defensive shell, Clarkson kept at Harvard with a
tenacious forechecking that kept Harvard in their own zone and made more
work for Roy.  Currie was called on to stop the only real Harvard flury
with three minutes left in the game.  He had to stop a Harvard rush
(that was offsides) and stop two rebound shots before freezing the puck.
Harvard pulled Roy, but Clarkson managed to clear the zone on the
ensuing face-off and go into the Harvard zone and score the game winner
with 35 sec left.  Harvard tried to pull Roy again, but they were never
able to penetrate the Clarkson zone.
 
Well I guess all of us Clarkson fans will have to root for St. Lawrence
tonight.  I really don't see Clarkson struggling against Brown, there's
too much at stake, and the team knows it.  But it will be a struggle for
St. Lawrence.  They barely got by Brown and have been playing quite flat
the past three weekends.
 
Mike Zak
Clarkson '87, '90
Tonight will be my last hoem game at Clarkson after 9 seasons.  We've
all got to graduate (again) sometime (this summer).