Jim Higgins built a big orange wall in Bright Center last night.

But the Crimson huffed and it puffed and it blew that wall down.

After it sorted through the orange rubble, the Harvard men's hockey team had topped Higgins' defensive-minded Princeton squad, 5-2.

"It's hard to play against a team like that," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "All they do is play defense. It gets to be a wrestling match. There were five orange shirts on the blue-line all night."

The Tiger's head-'em-off at the pass strategy worked to perfection until the end of the second period. The visitors showed the game down enough to prevent the slick-skating Crimson from getting into its run and gun offense.

With the score tied at two Princeton's Rob Scheur took a holding penalty at 17:48. Thirteen seconds later, Cliff Abrecht and the visitors were two-Tigers down.

At first, however, Harvard, couldn't take advantage of Abrecht's blunder. After a over a minute and a half and six or seven good shots, it looked like Princeton and goalie Dave Marotta, in particular, had succeeded in killing off both penalties.

Crimson defenseman Randy Taylor prevented the Tigers from pulling off the remarkable feat.

Taylor took the puck at the right point and moved in on Marotta. The goalie came out to cut off the angle and Taylor faked a shot, dipped around him and deposited the puck in the far corner from what looked to be an impossible angle.

"He came out and there was nothing to shoot at," Taylor said.

The score gave Harvard a 3-2 lead and, more important, forced Princeton out of its clutch and grab game in the third period.

With the game opened up, the Crimson got a chance to skate and a pair of pretty goals put the game away.

Scott Fusco, who had earned an assist in the first period to stretch his games with a point streak to 18 straight (six shy of the school record), broke in on goal on the power play.

Fusco worked the puck in close, faked a forehand and smacked a backhand in for his 21st goal.

"It gets frustrating," Fusco said about the game, "Every time you start to skate some guys holding or hooking. The referee didn't control it.