Harvard's determined hockey varsity fought from behind three times, once with less than a minute left in the third period, but finally lost a 5-4 heartbreaker in sudden-death overtime to Boston College Inst night in the round of the Beanpot Tournament.
A Boston Garden crowd of 13,058 saw Harvard's Jorge Gonzales score his second goal at 19:15 of the third period to send the game into overtime.
But B.C. pressed constantly in the Crimson end during the extra period, and Jerry York finally scored on a pretty combination play with Fred Kinsman.
Crimson goalie Bill Fitzsimmons turned in another magnificent performance, stopping 43 shots to keep Harvard in the game. The Eagles' great speed and size enabled them to overpower the Crimson defense, but Fits rarely failed to hold his ground.
Another Crimson Near Miss
In advancing to the Beanpot finals, B.C. notched its second last-ditch victory over Harvard. A month ago the Eagles scored twice in the last four minutes at Watson Rink to eke out a 3-2 win.
B.C. completely controlled the first-period action, but Fitzsimmons was perfect. He made 16 saves--half of them brilliant--to keep the period scoreless.
Harvard opened up its game in the second period, and scrambled to a 3-2 lead. B.C.'s Jim Mullen scored first after only 45 seconds on John Cunniffs rebound.
After Harvard's Pete Sahlin nearly scored twice, Frank Mackey finally knotted the score at 5:44. Gordie Price took a pass from Eddie Zeliner, skated it behind the net, and passed it out to Mackey to set up the goal.
But Pete Flaherty put B.C. back ahead only 17 seconds later, when John Moylan's pass found him all alone in front of Fitzsimmons.
This time Gonzales tied it, at 9:41, on Sahlin's perfect pass from the sideboards. The Crimson went on to take its only lead at 18:37, on a goal similar to its first. McCullough took the puck from Bobby Clark, skated behind the net, and passed out to Baldy Smith for the score.
In the third period, B.c. scored two quick goals to take a 4-3 lead a play began to slow down. First Phil Dyer blasted in another of Cunniff's rebounds, and then John Moylan scored from close in after faking Fitzsimmons out of position.
But Harvard just wouldn't give up. With just 45 seconds to go, Eagle goalie Pat Murphy stopped Sahlin's long shot, but Gonzales picked up the rebound and drove it past Murphy for the tying goal.
Just a few minutes later York netted his overtime goal, and another tremendous Crimson upset bid was shattered.
B.U. Wins Opener
Boston University also reached the finals by edging Northeastern 5-4 in a triple-overtime thriller in the first game of the Garden doubleheader.
Sophomore Fred Bassi scored the winning goal, his second of the evening. The Terrier victory was made possible by a series of great glove and kick saves by goalle Jack Ferreria in over-time play.
The opening game had been tied for 40 minutes, when B.U.'s Bassi took Tom Ross' pass in midair at the blue-line, stickhandled the puck through the North, eastern defense, and sild it under goalle Gary Thornton. The score came at 0:52 of the third ten-minute, sudden-death over-time sesion.
As usual, Northeastern's outstanding skater was Don Turcotte, who excelled not only at his defensive post, but also scored two goals.
Northeastern's goalle Thornton also played a brilliant game, kicking away 47 shots to prolong the game to three over-time sessions.
Next Monday Harvard will meet North-eastern in the consolation game, and must win in order to preserve its record of never having lost both Beanpot games.
B.U. and B.C. will then stage a rematch of last year's championship game when the Eagles won 6.5.
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