The ECAC playoff race is beginning to heat up, as both Cornell and Clarkson clinched postseason tournament berths with their victories on Saturday. With Harvard and Princeton returning to action after a few weeks off, all twelve teams have eight ECAC games remaining, and the only non-league affairs left are the two on Tuesday night and Harvard's participation in the Beanpot tournament. Scores from ECAC games over the weekend: Friday, 1/25: CLARKSON 7, Vermont 6 Colgate 5, DARTMOUTH 0 ST. LAWRENCE 6, Rpi 3 Saturday, 1/26: Brown 8, YALE 6 CLARKSON 8, Rpi 5 Cornell 7, DARTMOUTH 3 Vermont 5, ST. LAWRENCE 4 ARMY 11, Royal Military College 1 ECAC Standings as of 1/28/90: League Overall Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA ----------------------------------------------------------------------- $ Cornell 10 2 2 22 69 48 11 4 2 24 82 58 $ Clarkson 10 3 1 21 72 54 16 5 1 33 125 85 St. Lawrence 9 4 1 19 60 53 12 9 1 25 88 82 Yale 8 5 1 17 60 51 9 7 1 19 71 67 RPI 8 6 0 16 72 60 13 9 0 26 119 97 Harvard 8 6 0 16 88 55 8 8 0 16 89 61 Vermont 7 6 1 15 55 57 11 10 1 23 90 94 Brown 6 6 2 14 52 63 6 9 3 15 67 89 Colgate 4 7 3 11 50 54 10 8 3 23 86 78 Princeton 5 8 1 11 60 63 6 11 1 13 71 81 Army 1 11 2 4 36 62 6 12 3 15 84 77 Dartmouth 0 12 2 2 29 83 1 17 2 4 45 122 $ - Clinched playoff spot @ - Clinched qualifying round bye # - Clinched home ice Scores from Division III (mostly involving teams from the ECAC West): Friday, 1/25: Geneseo State 9, Brockport State 5 Hamilton 8, Potsdam State 2 Plattsburgh State 16, Binghamton State 4 RIT 13, St. Bonaventure 2 SE Massachusetts 7, Stonehill 4 Williams 3, Bowdoin 2 Saturday, 1/26: American International 9, Trinity 4 Canisius 4, Fredonia State 2 Cortland State 7, Brockport State 4 Elmira 6, RIT 4 Geneseo State 6, Oswego State 1 Hobart 6, Potsdam State 3 New Hampshire College 4, Bentley 3 Plattsburgh State 6, Hamilton 3 Skidmore 7, Villanova 4 Union 3, Norwich 2 Standings in the ECAC West division as of 1/27/90: ECAC East-West Overall Team W L T Pct. W L T --------------------------------------------------- Elmira 18 2 0 0.900 18 2 0 Geneseo State 14 1 3 0.861 15 1 3 Union 11 2 2 0.800 12 3 2 Mercyhurst 7 2 0 0.778 8 9 0 RIT 11 3 1 0.767 12 7 1 Plattsburgh State 14 6 0 0.700 15 6 1 Cortland State 9 6 1 0.594 11 6 1 Oswego State 9 8 0 0.529 9 8 0 Fredonia State 8 8 1 0.500 9 8 1 Hamilton 6 7 2 0.467 6 7 2 Hobart 6 10 1 0.382 6 10 1 Canisius 5 12 0 0.294 6 14 0 Potsdam State 4 14 0 0.222 4 14 0 Brockport State 3 12 0 0.200 5 12 0 Binghamton State 2 12 0 0.143 2 12 0 St. Bonaventure 1 13 2 0.125 1 13 2 Notes on a few of the games: Plattsburgh State 16, Binghamton State 4 Martin Beliveau and Ray Deblois each had two goals in the game as Plattsburgh State scored eight times in the first period, outshooting the Colonials by a 25-6 margin (shots were 53-28 for the game). Elmira 6, RIT 4 Rebounding from only their second loss of the season (to Mercyhurst last Sunday), the Soaring Eagles never trailed in this game and put it away with two late goals, despite being outshot by the RIT Tigers 45-25. Mike McNamara gave Elmira a quick lead, slapping a rebound past RIT goalie Fred Abraham just 1:11 into the first period. RIT's Tom Masaschi tied it up at the nine minute mark, but the Eagles went up 3-1 on goals by Bob McGee and Bobby Holmes. RIT again tied it up late in the second period with goals three minutes apart by Mike Heaney and Ken Moran. Both of these scores came during 5-on-3 power plays for RIT. Trevor MacLeod ricocheted one into the net off Abraham to give Elmira a 4-3 lead at 6:46 of the third period. Five minutes later, the game was tied for the third and final time. RIT's Bill Gall blasted a shot which Elmira goalie Tom O'Brien blocked, but Scott McNair was there to flip the rebound home for RIT's only even-strength goal of the night. Just 46 seconds later, however, Pete Romeo's slap shot from the blue line bounced off Abraham's glove and trickled into the net. Elmira was trying for a line change at the time. RIT had a golden opportunity to tie the score again, as Moran picked up a loose puck all alone in front of the Elmira goal, but O'Brien made the clutch save. Holmes picked up an empty-net goal with 13 seconds remaining. Elmira's All-American defenseman Jules Jardine picked up two assists to bring his career point total to 105, a school record for blue-liners. Colgate 5, Dartmouth 0 Colgate jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and pretty much coasted the rest of the way. Red Raider goalie Greg Menges was called on to make just 14 saves in recording the first shutout of his col- legiate career. Sam Raffoul scored twice for Colgate, while Marcel Richard added one goal and two assists. Cornell 7, Dartmouth 3 Dartmouth goalie Michael Bracco continued his quest to become the ECAC's next Chris Harvey, as he made 48 saves -- 43 of them in the first two periods. However, the star of the night was Cornell's Doug Derraugh, who picked up a hat trick in his second consecutive game, becoming the first Big Red player to do that since Joe Nieuwendyk in 1987. The six goals against Colgate and Dartmouth earned Derraugh the ECAC Player of the Week honors. As Cornell-Dartmouth games often do, this one started out slowly, with most of the action going on in the Dartmouth zone. The Big Green was not able to bring the puck out of their own end very often, and when they did get the puck into the Cornell zone, they didn't do much with it. Finally, the Big Red lit the lamp at 12:18 of the first. Kent Manderville got control of the puck deep in the Cornell zone and went on an end-to-end rush, skating around the Dartmouth defense and feeding Joe Dragon at the top of the faceoff circle. Dragon's shot went off Bracco's stick and dribbled across the goal line. Cornell went up 2-0 about two minutes later. Trent Andison stole the puck from Dartmouth defenseman Nat Collins and backhanded it toward the net. Bracco made the save, but the rebound floated over to Derraugh. Bracco was able to stop two tries by Derraugh, but the third shot went over the prone goalie and into the net. Bill Fitzpatrick and Anthony DelCarmine combined to put Dartmouth on the board at the 15:52 mark of the first period. Fitzpatrick knocked a Cornell defenseman off the puck and passed it to a wide-open DelCarmine, who fired a shot between goaltender Corrie D'Alessio's legs, and just that quickly, Dartmouth was back in the game. But just that quickly they were back out of it. Derraugh picked up his second goal of the night at 16:27 of the first on a beautiful play. On a give and go, Derraugh was knocked down in the Dartmouth slot, but he was able to field a pass from Andison and whack at the puck with the shaft of his stick, all while lying on his stomach. The shot bounced into the net off Bracco's pad. Eleven seconds later, Dan Ratushny caught the Dartmouth defense off guard with a 25-foot wrist shot over Bracco's shoulder. DelCarmine brought the Big Green back to within 4-2 with one minute left in the opening period. He took a harmless shot that D'Alessio made the save on, but the puck bounced straight up in the air and came down in the crease, and DelCarmine was there to tap it in. Cornell played more sloppily in the second period, but was still able to score two more goals and pretty much put the game out of reach. Bruce Frauley and Phil Nobel combined on a play that looked very much like the Big Red's first goal of the game, with Frauley coming out of the Cornell end with the puck, crossing the Dartmouth blue line, and sliding the puck over to Nobel. Nobel fired the puck through Bracco's legs to put the Big Red up 5-2 at 2:13 of the second. At the 8:34 mark, Andison poked the puck away from Bracco and into the net for an apparent goal, but referee Dan Murphy had lost sight of the puck and had blown the play dead. Murphy had a pretty shaky game, not calling much of anything, and when he did, it was usually the wrong player for the wrong penalty anyway. At any rate, Derraugh completed his hat trick at 12:43 of the second with a power-play goal, beating Bracco on the right side with a low shot. Dartmouth almost killed off a Cornell 5-on-3 (which, interestingly enough, included a major for hitting from behind -- no injuries) early in the third, but Manderville stuffed in a rebound for the Big Red's final goal at the 2:21 mark. After playing his way down to the fourth line and nearly onto the bench over the past several games, Manderville put together a pretty good effort against the Big Green (one goal, one assist) and seems to be on his way back to the form that won him ECAC Rookie of the Year honors last season. At 6:31 of the third period, Parris Duffus replaced D'Alessio between the pipes for the Big Red. A little while later, Murphy made his worst non-call of the night, as he watched Dartmouth's Scott Fraser butt-end Derraugh right in the face (which usually earns a game disqualifi- cation) and merely gave Fraser a warning. Proving perhaps that there is no justice in the world, Fraser picked up the last goal of the game, corralling a loose puck in the Cornell zone and beating Duffus with a 35-foot wrist shot. Other than that, Duffus played pretty well, finishing with six saves; D'Alessio stopped 16 shots. This week's games in the ECAC: Jan. 29 Boston College at Cornell (NLG) Lowell at Yale (NLG) Feb. 1 Army at Harvard Brown at Vermont Clarkson at Cornell Princeton at Dartmouth St. Lawrence at Colgate Yale at RPI Feb. 2 Army at Dartmouth Brown at RPI Clarkson at Colgate Princeton at Harvard St. Lawrence at Cornell Yale at Vermont Although only Cornell and Clarkson have mathematically clinched spots in the ECAC, the current top ten teams will probably end up going to the playoffs. (Army and Dartmouth are both far enough back that they will not see post- season action unless some teams completely collapse) Thus, the hunt will begin for the coveted home-ice berths. The three biggest games of the week are all taking place at Lynah Rink, which of course is great for me :-) Games to watch: Yale at RPI These two teams are still in pretty good shape as far as home ice is concerned (Yale is in fourth place, RPI in fifth), but they have been hurting themselves with their play recently. RPI has lost four of their last five ECAC games, while Yale has dropped their last three in a row, including two to traveling partner Brown. The Elis will need to turn it around quickly, as six of their last eight games are on the road. Boston College at Cornell The most relieved team in the league has to be the Big Red, returning to the friendly confines of Lynah Rink after an eight game road trip. Their relief will be short-lived, however, as they start a five-game home stand with one of the top teams in the East. Although BC owns a 5-1 record against ECAC competition this season, they are playing at about a .500 clip on the road, while Cornell is undefeated at Lynah. The Big Red has already shown that they can hold their own against the best in the country (against Lake Superior in the SIT), and if they can play up to their potential, the Eagles are going to have a lot of trouble. However, Cornell has also put together a few pretty dismal efforts this season (a loss to Princeton? Ouch!), and if they play like THAT, well, BC will hardly break a sweat. Clarkson at Cornell St. Lawrence at Cornell Did someone say "breather"? I didn't think so. These two games will go a long way toward determining who is going to walk off with the ECAC regular-season title and a probable (though not guaranteed) NCAA tournament berth. When Clarkson and Cornell met in November at Walker, both teams were undefeated and tied for first, and top-spot bragging rights will once again be on the line Friday night. I belittled Clark- son's Chris Rogles at the beginning of the season, but he has emerged as one of the ECAC's top goaltenders. By the way, what happened to Jason Currie? The last I heard, he was in coach Mike Morris' doghouse for cutting classes. Cornell will certainly be up for Clarkson (and vice versa); however, the Big Red would be well advised not to have a letdown against St. Lawrence. Despite some inconsistent play this season, the Saints have remained in the thick of things, even getting a whiff of first place a few weeks back. Their goalie, Les Kuntar, is another good one. Bill Fenwick Cornell '86 LET'S GO RED!! From the "I never thought of that" department: "To open, use can opener" -- Printed on the top of a can of Furmano's spaghetti sauce