With only one point to show for its season-opening road trip, Harvard returned to its winning ways with a pair of wins at home.<\/p>\n
The Crimson (3-2-1, 3-2-1 ECAC), who posted a thrilling 4-3 overtime victory over perennial Ivy League foe Cornell Friday night, coasted to an effortless 6-1 win over Colgate (3-6-0, 2-2-0 ECAC) Saturday night to close out the homestand sweep. <\/p>\n
Despite the outpouring of goals, the Crimson needed only a pair of tallies to ensure its victory. Posting its first shorthanded goal of the season, Harvard continued its tradition of offensive-minded penalty-killing. With Scooter Smith sidelined by a hooking call, the duo of Brett Nowak and Dennis Packard combined to put the Crimson up 2-0 at 9:51. Nowak capitalized on Colgate’s defense lapse and slid a pass to Packard, who one-timed it home on the doorstep.<\/p>\n
The victory, the most offensively productive game the Crimson has had since its heartbreaking 8-7 loss to Northeastern last year in the Beanpot consolation game, gave the Crimson seven points and sole possession of first place in the ECAC.<\/p>\n
“Tonight’s game was not a work of art,” Harvard head coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “But not every game is going to be a work of art. With the start we got off to, these wins help us a lot in our league and put us in a better position to strike.”<\/p>\n
The Red Raiders have had very little luck against the Crimson in recent years, failing to take a victory from Harvard since its 5-4 win on its home ice in 1999. The Crimson’s victory, ironically its first successful bid against unranked opponents, increased its series streak to four games over the Red Raiders. <\/p>\n
The Crimson wasted little time breaking into the scoring column, notching a quick tally in the opening minutes of the first period. Jeff Stonehouse perfectly deflected a hard slap from Kenny Smith in the high slot at 1:35.<\/p>\n
The Red Raiders squandered a handful of choice opportunities to exploit Dov Grumet-Morris in the early going, including a two-on-one rush at 13:30. Colgate’s Kyle Doyle, flanked by linemate Brad D’Arco, launched a wrist shot just wide of the net.<\/p>\n
Just off the power play, Smith had a hand in the Crimson’s third tally of the night at 18:55 in the first period. Andrew Lederman dished to Smith at the point, who deftly slipped a one-timer past Jason LeFevre.<\/p>\n
The character of the game changed markedly in the second period, as Colgate took the ice with a little more spring in its step. Both teams succumbed to sloppy and undisciplined play and the Red Raiders’ frustration gave way to seven penalties.<\/p>\n
The rougher play allowed Colgate to capitalize on a temporary momentum shift and made Grumet-Morris’ bid for his first collegiate shutout short-lived. With both sides down a man from matching penalties, Ben Bryce gained control of the puck in the low slot at 7:25 and fired the puck in front of Grumet-Morris. Doyle slammed home the puck five-hole to put the Red Raiders on the board 3-1.<\/p>\n
Doyle’s goal was the only blemish on an otherwise fantastic night for the rookie netminder. <\/p>\n
“The team played really, really well in front of me this weekend,” Grumet-Morris said. “It made my job a whole lot easier. This weekend was a huge turning point for our team.”<\/p>\n
The Crimson regained its three-goal advantage with an unassisted tally from Nowak at 5:23 in the second stanza. Just back at even strength, Nowak smoothly cycled around the net and shoved the puck through the scrum in front of the crease to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
After almost two periods of play, Colgate head coach Don Vaugahn opted for a fresh goaltender in David Cann after Harvard’s fourth goal. LeFevre departed with 5:23 left in the second period after facing 19 shots and stopping 15 of them.<\/p>\n
Harvard attempted to put up a pair of short-handed tallies with just under a minute to go in the middle frame. Tim Pettit gained control of the puck in the neutral zone and rushed in alone, but Cann was able to pull off a spectacular save to keep Colgate within three.<\/p>\n
Halfway through the final frame, Noah Welch tallied the Crimson’s fifth goal off a pass from linemate Tom Cavanaugh. Dave McCulloch capped off Harvard’s scoring with a soft shot off from the point at 18:52 off a pass from Lederman on the power play to make it 6-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Harvard Crimson downed Colgate, 6-1, to take over sole possession of first place in this early juncture of the season. Freshman netminder Dov Grumet-Morris helps lead the Crimson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2483"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}