Junior Matt Beca (Mississauga, ONT) scored two goals to help the Clarkson University Hockey team skate to a 3-3 tie against Harvard in ECAC Hockey action at Cheel Arena on Saturday. The Golden Knights, who defeated Dartmouth 6-3 on Friday, completed their final regular season home stand by taking three of four points in league play.
Clarkson moved into a tied, along with Union, for eighth place in the standings with a 7-9-4 ECAC Hockey mark. The Green and Gold, who stand at 9-16-7 overall, close out the regular season at Rensselaer and Union next weekend.
“We are not happy with this tie,” stated Clarkson assistant coach Jean-Francois Houle. “I thought we out played them 5-on-5. We are getting a lot of chances, but we have to learn to put teams away. We let them hang in there. Bad penalties are what cost us, and gave them the momentum. We hurt ourselves tonight.”
The Knights held leads of 2-0 and 3-2 against Harvard, but the Crimson (7-14-6, 7-7-6) battled back to post their second tie of the weekend in the North Country. The Crimson, who gained a 2-2 draw at St. Lawrence on Friday, hold down sixth place in the league. Harvard, who went winless on the road during the regular season (0-11-5), host Quinnipiac and Princeton next weekend.
Similar to the start in last night’s win over Dartmouth, Clarkson came out strong against Harvard and took the lead early in the first period. At 4:29, Beca took a pass out of the corner by senior Chris D’Alvise (Mississauga, ONT) and knocked in his first goal of the game. Senior Shea Guthrie (Carleton Place, ONT) also assisted to pick up his 100th career point. The Knights out shot the Crimson 12-6 in the opening stanza and did not allow the visitors a shot on goal until there was nine minutes remaining in the period.
The Knights’ solid play continued in the opening half of the middle frame as Clarkson took a 2-0 lead. Guthrie redirected a shot from the point by sophomore defenseman Bryan Rufenach (Cameron, ONT) 18 seconds into the first power play at 3:11 for his 11th goal of the season. Beca also assisted on Guthrie’s third goal of the weekend.
Harvard, which did not registered its first shot on goal in the second period until there was a little over seven minutes to play in the stanza, rallied back with a pair of late goals to tie the game 2-2 through 40 minutes.
Junior Doug Rogers (Watertown, MA) started the Crimson comeback at 13:08 when he knocked in a big rebound off a shot by sophomore Michael Biega (Montreal, QUE) during a four-on-four situation for his seventh goal of the year. With 2:03 remaining in the middle frame, freshman Alex Killorn (Montreal, QUE) connected on a shot from the point that found its way through traffic in front for a power-play tally to even the score.
Beca put the Knights back on top 3:59 into the third period, knocking in is own rebound while cutting across the crease for his 10th goal of the year. Senior Dan Tuttle (Augusta, ME) assisted.
With 11:43 remaining, Harvard once again tied the game with its second power-play goal. Sophomore Chris Huxley (Weymouth, MA) finished off a rush with classmate Matt McCollem (Somerville, MA) and freshman Daniel Moriarty (Estevan, SASK) to knot the game at 3-3.
Clarkson had the better of the chances late in regulation and in the overtime period, but could not put in the deciding goal.
The Knights out shot the Crimson 30-26. Freshman Richie LaVeau (Arlington Heights, IL), making his second consecutive start in the Clarkson goal for the first time this season, posted 23 saves. Sophomore Ryan Carroll (Hackensack, NJ) made 27 stops for Harvard.
The Crimson were perfect on the power play going 2-of-2. The Knights went 1-of-2 on the man advantage.
