The freshman hockey team stayed close to a pesky Merrimack squad for a period and a half and then overpowered the tiring Warriors to capture a 6-3 win yesterday at Watson Rink.

The Warriors prevented Harvard from mounting many potent charges for the first half of the game with skillful pokechecking and aggressive forechecking. For the most part the Crimson defense also kept Merrimaek away from its goal during this period, so most of the first 30 minutes were played between the blue lines.

Merrimack's Fran Johnson opened the scoring when he rifled a slap shot through a maze of players and past goalie Joe Bertagna at 12:05 of the first period. Harvard capitalized on a four-on-two breakaway seven minutes later to even the score Larry Desmond grabbed a pass from Bill Corkery and flicked a floater into the right side of goaltender Pat Finch's net to pick up the tally.

David Krzemien snatched the lead back for the Warriors with only a minute gone in the second period on a ten-foot slapper.

Halfway through the second period, however, the Warriors-who brought only two lines and two sets of defensemen to Watson-seemed to tire and loss their scrappiness. And soon after, Merrimack goalie Pat Finch was hit in the head by a slap shot. Raising his hand to his head repeatedly throughout the rest of the game, he was significantly less effective.

The Yardlings quickly took advantage of Merrimack's misfortunes. David Hynes fished a puck out of a seramble in front of the Warrior net and piked it in to even the game at 2-2 with 11:26 gone in the second period.

Bob McManama shot a pass out to Steve Harris in front of the Warrior net, and Harris slid the puck into the Merrimack goal to give Harvard the lead for the first time, 3-2.

McManama tallied twice in the third period and Harry Reynolds once in the third period to give Harvard its six-goal total.

The freshmen's record is now 8-1.