Tonight at Meehan Auditorium the Brown Bears narrowly defeated the
Cornell Big Red in ECAC Quarterfinal action. This was a very close game
all the way to the end, and was tremendously enjoyable to watch. In the
end Bruno ground the Red into submission to get the win.
 
The first opened up with both teams playing fast and hard. The play was
largely end-to-end with a couple good breaks here and there. Cornell
poured it on hard in the first half of the period and had several good
scoring opportunities, but the momentum swung the other way for the second
half, as the final minutes were spend mostly in the Red end. These are two
strong teams and I expected to see some chippy play and a fair amount of
penalties. To my surprise they kept it fairly clean and the first closed
out without any scoring or penalties.
 
In the second Brown continued to dominate play, and made several very good
attempts on the power play. Cornell's netminder, Alanna Hayes, played
very, very well between the pipes and really kept Cornell in the game.
Brown was beating Cornell to the puck and their puckhandling was quite
good here, and the Red had some trouble breaking out of their zone except
on the power play.  Cornell had several scoring opportunities in the
beginning and the end of the period but at the end there were still goose
eggs on the board.
 
Cornell came out with renewed energy in the third and applied the pressure
early. Brown goalie Ali Brewer came up with the big saves here.  After two
periods of great competetive hockey the teams and the crowd were really
into this game. Tensions ran higher though when Brown's Jaime Abel was
called for roughing at 8:32 and Brown's penalty kill unit came on the ice.
A little under a minute into the penalty, Brown's Carly Regnier broke out
of her own zone and sped down the ice to Hayes' right. Jordan Jiskra (I
think) also broke out down the left side unmarked and the two took
advantage of the 2-on-0. Regnier started the fake to Jiskra but instead
shot on Hayes (outside the crease to cut off the play) so Jiskra could get
the rebound. Hayes made the block down low, but couldn't control the
rebound and was laid out, vulnerable. Regnier took the puck around Hayes'
left and into the resulting empty net at 9:31. A fabulous shorthanded
goal!
 
Shortly thereafter Ali Kenney drew a questionable tripping penalty and
Brown killed off a 15 second 5-on-3 and the rest of the power play quite
nicely. After this point Brown did not play very well as they appeared
very hyper and found themselves scrambling on defense. Shades of the
playoff monkey on Bruno's back appeared again! Brewer withstood the
assault on net (including some *very* close calls), and the 1:20 of 6-on-5
to get the shutout win and advance Brown to the semis next Saturday.
 
This was the most enjoyable game I've seen in a long time. Cornell really
deserves a lot of credit for playing a very competetive match, but they
were simply outworked by the Bears. This match was also as much about
goaltending as any other aspect of the game, and both put on an excellent
show. Hayes was the key in keeping Cornell in the game.
 
Next weekend #4 Brown faces Ivy rival #3 Dartmouth in the ECAC Semifinals
at 4:00pm in Northeastern's Matthews Arena (which actually creates quite a
problem for me -- Women at 4:00 in Boston or Brown Men at home at 7:00pm?
:-)
 
Brown Hockey on the web:  http://www.netspace.org/~bfisk/hockey
 
 
 
March 7, 1998
Meehan Auditorium
Unofficial Box Score (w/ from notes)
 
Cornell 0 Brown 1
------------------
 
         1   2   3   Total
        ------------------
Cornell  0   0   0     0
Brown    0   0   1     1
 
First Period:
-------------
Scoring:
NONE
 
Penalties:
NONE
 
Second Period:
--------------
Scoring:
NONE
 
Penalties:
BRN- JONES (tripping) 2:40
COR- OLSON (cross-checking) 10:07
COR- KEMP (roughing) 14:39
BRN- GARDNER (hooking) 15:01
 
Third Period:
-------------
Scoring:
BRN- REGNIER (unassisted) 9:31 SHG 4-on-5
 
Penalties:
BRN- ABEL (roughing) 8:32
BRN- KENNEY (tripping) 10:17
COR- STEWART (checking) 15:18
 
Goaltending:
------------
B- Ali Brewer (60:00, 37 saves)
C- Alanna Hayes (58:40, 45 saves)
 
Shots on Goal: (totally unofficial -- personal count :-)
--------------
 
    1   2   3    Total
    ------------------
C-   9   13   15    37
B-  15   19   12    46
 
 
 
 
 
 
--                                                                          --
Brian Fisk                                                  [log in to unmask]
 
Very funny Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.
 
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