It's the opening round of the ECAC Division One hockey play-offs, and first-place Boston University is hosting some luckless eight-place straggler, in this case Vermont. That's normal. It's late in the second period in that game, and the score is 3-0. That's also normal. What's not normal is that the Catamounts are in the lead, and the Terriers and their fans are getting desperate.

Fortunately for the partisan sell-out crowd at Walter Brown Arena and his increasingly worried teammates, senior forward John Bethel came through with three goals, including the winner with only 15 seconds left in regulation, to lead B.U. to a thrilling 4-3 victory last night and a berth at this weekend's ECAC tournament at Boston Garden.

In other ECAC Division One quarterfinal action, second-place UNH defeated number seven Yale, 9-2, and in two painfully exciting (it is to be presumed) overtime contests, third-place Cornell came back to top sixth-place Providence, 6-5, and fourth-seeded Dartmouth edged Clarkson 2-1.

Bethel's game-clinching tally, a high snapshot from the near face-off circle that sneaked over the left shoulder of Vermont netminder Sylvaine Turcotte and into the upper corner of the net, came little more than a minute after the Terriers had successfully killed off a charging penalty to Daryl MacLeod.

With time running out, Mark Fidler dumped the puck into the Vermont zone in one final attempt to grab a victory without having to wait for the uncertainties of sudden-death overtime. While the Catamount defensemen studied for hourlies, Bethel simply picked up the puck after it bounced off the boards, closed in on the Vermont net, and rapped home a quickie from about 15 feet for only his sixth goal of the season.

"It was kind of a lucky shot," Bethel said after the game. "It caught the roof."

After nearly 36 minutes of frustration and sloppy play, the Terriers finally got their act together late in the second period.

Bethel started the comeback and his heroics at 14:54 of the middle stanza when he put a low shot past Turcotte's gloveside for a power-play goal.

Bethel cut the gap to one with only eight seconds left in period two. Fidler supplied the feed and the Roxboro, Quebec, native converted it from in close. 6:58 into the third period, as Bethel took a deserved break from the spotlight, a freshman, Robbie Davies, flipped a backhander through the legs of a sliding Vermont defenseman and into the net to make it 3-3.

Craig Homola popped in a rebound to open the scoring for Vermont at 7:35 of the first period, Gary Prinor made good off a goalmouth scramble 1:14 into the second period and Chris Zimmerman finished a three-on-two break with a no-nonsense wristshot past B.U. goalie Jim Craig ten-and-a-half minutes later. But for Vermont, the worst was yet to come.

But if last night's game gave Terrier fans a little indigestion, the Ithaca battle between Cornell and Providence left Big Red supporters with a bleeding ulcer. The Friars had jumped out to a seemingly unbeatable 5-1, third period lead before a horrified sell-out crowd at Walker Arena before the Big Red caught fire, as John Stornik, Steve Hennessy and John Olds left Providence with only a one-goal lead. Randy Wilson could have clinched the game with a minute left, but he missed an empty net and Cornell's Lance Nethery came back to blast the puck past John Milner to knot the game at 19:47. Defenseman Rob Gemmell supplied what must have seemed the inevitable climax to Providence's nightmare finish when, four minutes into sudden death, he beat Milner before the Friars could manage a shot.

In Hanover, N.H., Dartmouth and Clarkson traded first period goals--Rich Ryerson for the Big Green and Kevin Owen for the Golden Knights--and then settled down for a 50-minute waiting game until junior Dennis Murphy ended the suspense and the game, 2-1, in favor of Dartmouth. Clarkson goalie Rick Mills stopped 36 shots on the night, while Dartmouth's Bob Gaudet snared 26.

The Elis, shut out of post-season play for a decade, found out that play-off competition is not so easy as their usual late-season battle for the Division One cellar. Freshman center Dan McPherson tossed in four goals and senior right winger Bruce Crowder added three more as UNH yawned past Yale, 9-2, at Snively Arena in Durham, N.H. It was the first time either McPherson or Crowder had scored more than twice in one game. Strangely enough, last night's contest was tied, 1-1, after the first period, but five unanswered UNH goals in the second broke the game open.

So, the pairings for Friday night's semifinals at the Garden are these: Boston University (21-5-2) vs. Dartmouth (17-7-2) and UNH (20-8-3) vs. Cornell (20-7-0).

Nu. where's Harvard?