Tim Smith, who scored two goals last year, scored three, the last with just 20 seconds left in regulation, to give the Harvard men's hockey team a 6-6 victory over--er, tie with--Boston College December 21 at McHugh Forum.

Smith's bat trick and three goals from linemates Scott Fusco and Lane MacDonald paced the 8-0-2 Crimson to a miraculous deadlock that saw the visitors rally from three goals down with just over 10 minutes left.

With the comeback, ECAC leading Harvard remains the only unbeaten team in Division I hockey.

The Crimson will be sorely tested tonight, however, when the squad hosts RPI (10-2 overall, 5-1 ECAC) at 7:30 p.m. at Bright Center. (All seats are sold out, but 500 standing-room tickets will go on sale at the rink an hour before the game.)

The B.C. tie gave a new measure of respect to the ECAC, as the Eagles, atop newfangled super league Hockey East, failed to hand a representative of the older circuit a sound defeat.

Halfway through the final period, however, the Eagles seemed well in control of the Crimson.

After a Neil Shea goal gave B.C. a 6-3 advantage with less than 13 minutes to play, Hockey East seemed to have proved that its best team, even after a two-week layoff, could easily scuttle the best of the what remains of the ECAC.

But Smith, who has now scored in each of the Crimson's 10 games this year, sandwiched goals at 9:35 and 19:40 of the final stanza around a beautiful Fusco tally for the tie.

Harvard goalie Grant Blair (48 saves) and Eagle goalie Scott Gordan (49 saves) held the line in the overtime.

The Crimson's first line of Fusco, Smith and MacDonald recorded all six of the Crimson's scores, including four power play tallies.

The play of the number-one line in extra-man situations--the unit is converting at nearly a 50 percent rate--and the play of the team's six freshman skaters have been the keys to the icemen's early-season success.

"I've never had any line that's scored like this in 10 games," said Harvard Coach Bill Cleary. "They all have great skills, they can handle the puck and they have the instincts."

Fusco leads the ECAC in scoring with 20 points. Smith, MacDonald and defenseman Mark Benning are tied for fifth.

And between Fusco and his teammates on the ECAC scoring chart are three players for the same team--RPI. In fact, Mark Jooris, Adam Oates and John Carter all play on the same line for the Engineers.

Toss in Harvard defenseman Randy Taylor, and the schools boast the league's seven highest scorers and eight of the top 10.

Fusco, MacDonald and Smith have scored 37 of the Crimson's 59 goals overall and Carter, Jooris and Oates have accounted for 41 of RPI's 88 tallies.

Moreover, the two hottest lines in college hockey are centered by the two leading scorers in the nation, Oates and Fusco. The pair are the only players averaging more than three points a game.

Ultimately, the contest may rest with Blair, last year's Ivy League Player of the Year, and Darren Puppa, the RPI netminder whose 2.26 goals-against-average leads the ECAC.

Tomorrow night, the Crimson hosts Vermont at 7:30 p.m. in an anticlimactic battle. The icemen should roll over the Catamounts, who are 1-5 going into tonight's contest at Dartmouth and appear far too weak to pose much of a challenge.