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. _____________ / good shooting rhun _____________/