Tuesday night, the Big Red defeated travel partner and arch-rival Colgate at
Lynah Rink by a 3-1 score, regaining first place in the ECAC in the process. It
was not a pretty game but it was a good solid defensive effort by Cornell,
sparked by the sensational play of goaltender Jason Elliott. The win was the
Big Red's fourth straight over Colgate, dating back to last January.
 
And speaking of goaltending... this is an odd thing to say about a goalie who
stopped 22 of the 24 shots he faced, but Colgate's Dan Brenzavich looked ter-
rible. He roamed far from the net, sometimes too far, getting himself caught
out of position a few times and having to rely on some quick work by his
defense. On several occasions when he drifted out to cut down the angle, he
left a good portion of the net wide open. Even when he was in the net, he
seemed like he was fighting the puck all night, never really sure where it was
or where it was going. Despite only allowing two goals (the last was an empty-
netter), Brenzavich looked almost as tentative on Tuesday as he did during the
shellacking Colgate endured last March during the quarterfinal series -- a long
way from the stellar form he showed during his freshman and most of his sopho-
more seasons.
 
An ill-advised jaunt by Brenzavich almost resulted in a Cornell goal 7:30 into
the first period. He stopped a shot, gloved the puck, and skated out of the
crease to his left. With no whistle forthcoming, Brenzavich dripped the puck in
the left circle and attempted to play it, but he flipped it directly to a Cor-
nell skater (Darren Tymchyshyn, I believe) who headed behind the Colgate net.
As Brenzavich quickly tried to scramble back to the net, he fell down. Mean-
while, the Cornell player had dumped the puck in front of the net, but several
Colgate skaters rushed to the crease, denying the Big Red a chance at the empty
net. Nevertheless, upon seeing Brenzavich's antics, the Lynah Faithful, in
honor of the Red Raider backup goalie who graduated last year, serenaded Col-
gate with "We want Weder!" -- a chant that is fast becoming the "Potvin sucks!"
of college hockey.
 
Anyway, Kyle Knopp had another big chance for Cornell at about the 13:30 mark,
when he got the puck near the Cornell blue line and weaved through the Colgate
defense, getting off a backhanded as two Red Raiders were in the process of
leveling him. The shot bounced off Brenzavich, and Matt Cooney, who was trail-
ing the play, tried to put the follow-up home. He missed the shot and wound up
on top of Brenzavich instead.
 
Despite Cornell's solid defense, Colgate did wind up with some odd-man rushes,
and they had a golden opportunity with about two minutes left in the first when
Elliott, for what seemed like the only time all night, lost track of the puck.
He was looking behind the net when the puck came loose in the slot in front of
him, but luckily the shot bounced off his pads. A minute later, though, Elliott
made a brilliant save when Dave Debusschere, the Red Raiders' leading scorer,
steamed in on a breakaway.
 
Cornell head coach Mike Schafer expressed some displeasure with the officials
early in the second period, and while it's generally not a good idea to ride
the guys in the striped shirts, Schafer was somewhat justified in this case,
because Colgate had six skaters on the ice for at least 20 seconds before ref-
eree John Murphy finally called them for it. (Maybe it was the sudden move of
the extra skater back to the bench that caught his eye :-) At any rate, about
six minutes into the second, Ryan Moynihan took a pass and split two Colgate
defenders on his way to the Red Raider net. One of the blueliners, Mark Hold-
ridge, desperately hooked Moynihan to prevent the breakaway and got called for
it, and Cornell quickly converted the ensuing power play. Brenzavich stopped a
couple of shots during a big goalmouth scramble before Kyle Knopp got his stick
on a Ryan Smart rebound, hacked at it, then hacked at it again to get it over
the goalie's pads. Elliott preserved the lead a couple minutes later with a big
save, after he had come out to the left circle to stop a shot. The rebound
bounced over to the slot, where Tim Loftsgard was waiting with nothing but net
to shoot at. Elliott dove back to the crease and gloved Loftsgard's shot.
 
With Colgate on the power play at about the eleven-minute mark, an ill-advised
line change by the Big Red left the Red Raiders in a 4-on-2 break, but Jack
McIntosh, who was leading the play, elected to take a quick shot, which flew
well over the net and out of play, ending the threat. Knopp had another chance
from the right side in the Colgate zone with under seven minutes left, but by
the time he got control of the puck, Brenzavich had closed the five-hole, and
the shot bounced harmlessly away.
 
At 14:30 of the second period, Murphy missed an obvious tripping call on a Col-
gate player, and for whatever reason, the pace of the game (which had been slow
and sluggish) suddenly picked up. With under a minute left in the second, Tym-
chyshyn had a 2-on-1 short-handed breakaway with Tony Bergin, who fed him with
a nice pass. Tymchyshyn let loose with a high slapper that Brenzavich was able
to get the glove on.
 
It didn't matter, though, because on the same Colgate power play, at 1:05 of
the third, Tymchyshyn got the short-hander on an amazing individual effort. Rob
Mara fanned on a shot in the Cornell zone, and with McIntosh apparently trying
to pinch in from the left point, Tymchyshyn picked up the loose puck and took
off on an end-to-end rush with McIntosh in hot pursuit. Tymchyshyn shifted to
his backhand and sent a quick shot through Brenzavich's pads to make it 2-0.
Dan Wildfong had a short-handed breakaway of his own about six minutes later,
but Elliott came up with another nice save to preserve the shutout.
 
Jason Kendall made a terrific play for Cornell at the 8:23 mark. Elliott
stopped a shot to the right of the net, but the puck popped loose to his left
and lay invitingly in the crease, sliding toward the goal line. Before any of
the Colgate players could react, however, Kendall dove and knocked the puck
away with his glove. Colgate protested to Murphy for some reason after that
-- maybe they thought the puck was across the line or something.
 
Todd Murphy broke up Elliott's shutout bid with 4:34 remaining and got Colgate
back into the game at the same time. Elliott had made two great pad saves on
shots by Mike Harder and Andy McDonald, but Murphy tracked down the rebound in
the right circle and lifted a shot over Elliott's left shoulder and just inside
the crossbar. With under two minutes left, Tony Bergin took off on an end-to-
end rush and tried to stuff the puck home from in close. Brenzavich made the
save, at which point Bergin reached back and tried to backhand the loose puck
home. Brenzavich gloved the shot to stop play.
 
With 1:45 remaining, Colgate took their timeout, but the Red Raiders were
unable to gain control of the puck to pull Brenzavich. With the faceoff in the
Cornell zone and 53 seconds left, Brenzavich was finally pulled, but right off
the faceoff, either Bergin or Jamie Papp fired a long shot through center ice,
just missing the net wide. The Big Red did get the empty-netter with ten sec-
onds left, when Ryan Smart dumped the puck out of the zone and Matt Cooney
skated it down the ice and slid it home from the edge of the crease. Elliott
had 22 saves.
 
Cornell continues its four-game home stand this Friday and Saturday, when the
Big Red hosts RPI and Union.
 
 
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
              strictly those of:
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95
LET'S GO RED!!                                                  DJF  5/27/94
"A man shouldn't be an athlete after the age of 27."
-- George Foreman, in 1973
 
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