"How much better can you play and not win a hockey game?" Harvard coach Billy Clearly asked after his charges fired 53 shots at Brown goaltender Paul McCarthy but suffered a 3-2 loss at the Bright Center Saturday night.

The Crimson outshot Brown in every period, piling up an incredible 48-9 margin over the final 40 minutes. But what Clearly called "one of the best games a Harvard team has played in four years" ended in disappointment when Bruin Dan Santanello slid the puck past Harvard netminder Mark Wohiston at 16:24 of the third period.

And despite furious pressure on the Bruin net the rest of the way, including several puck-through-the-crease heart-breakers and the squad's best power-play effort of the season, the Crimson (now 4-3) couldn't score again, and trudged to the locker room one-goal losers.

Whiston kicked away 18 shots in a solid performance that was impressive because he didn't see the puck for minutes at a time. "A night like this is the thoughest game for a goaltender to play," Whiston said after the game. "Concentration-wise you have to be real sharp."

But McCarthy, the acrobat in the other cage, overshadowed Whiston. A freshman out of Hingham High who is used to busy nights (he stopped 50 shots against Matignon in the Eastern Mass. schoolboy tournament last March), McCarthy singlehandedly prevented what would have been Harvard's third consecutive win with textbook goaltending under pressure.

"It's nice to play in an up-and-down game with lots of action," McCarthy said. "If you have too much time between shots you get cold."

With more superb play from the Crimson's first line (Mike Watson, Tom Murray and Greg Olson) and increased production from the other lines, McCarthy didn't have much idle time.

And when Harvard outshot the Bruins, 22-6, in the final period-playing its finest 20 minutes of hockey in recent memory-the freshman came up with 21 saves.

Heavy Breathing

The shot he didn't stop was breathless, shorthanded effort by Greg Olson that knotted the game, 2-2, four minutes into the stanza. Outrunning the puck just past center ice, the sophomore took it all the way past a pair of defensemen and beat McCarthy to the glove side for his fifth goal.

THE NOTEBOOK: Harvard's defense played it's finest game of the season, largely because of a superhuman effort from Mark Fusco. The sophomore played perhaps the best all-around game of his career...Brown's Darrell Petit, whose two-minute penalty at 6:35 of the first period is memorable because it contained three possible infractions, may be the dirtiest player in the ECAC. Incomprehensibly, Petit even complained to official Bill Quinn about the call...Crimson defenseman Alan Litchfield has become the team's hardest and most consistent checker. Litchfield played a solid game in every respect and is challenging Scott Sangster as the squad's best defensive defenseman. Brown, 3-2 at Cambridge Brown (2-4-1)  1  1  1-3 Harvard (4-3)  0  1  1-2

Scoring: B, Dan Santanello (Mark Elwood, Brian Riley) 17:52; B, Darrell Bolduc (Steve DeBlois, John Slonim) 2:44; H, Tom Murray (Greg Olson, Dave Burke) 13:24; H, Olson (unassisted) 4:27; B, Santanello (Scott Skinner, Riley) 16:24.

Saves: H, Mark Whiston, 18: B, Paul McCarthy, 51.