ITHACA, N.Y.--It was a strange scene here last night at Lynah Rink when the Harvard men's hockey team lined up for the singing of the national anthem.

As the Crimson stood still for Old Glory, the fans showered Harvard with newspapers.

But when the final whistle sounded for the Harvard-Cornell game, the only news out of Lynah was a 4-2 Harvard victory over the Big Red in front of 3824 spectators.

The win moved Harvard (16-1 ECAC, 19-1 overall) a step closer to clinching the regular-season league title, while putting the Red (10-7, 12-9) in a fourth-place tie with Clarkson (9-6-2, 12-11-2).

Sophomore Mike Vukonich netted the game-winner 16:20 into the second period to give Harvard a 3-1 lead. It was Vukonich's seventh goal of the season.

"We held our poise after they got their first goal," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "It can be intimidating here. We got into our game, which is skating and forechecking."

Big Red junior Jim Goerz gave Cornell an early 1-0 lead when he took a feed from freshman Karl Williams and fired it to the right of Crimson goaltender Allain Roy at the 13:53 mark of the opening period.

The Cornell fans went wild, but the Cornell lead was old news just three minutes later.

Harvard forward Ed Presz evened the * when he tipped in a Paul Howley rebound at the 16:06 mark. A Kevin Melrose slapshot from the point set up the play.

"Working hard and being in the right place at the right time," Presz said. "It was my type of goal."

"It's great that Eddie came back with that goal," Harvard Captain Lane MacDonald said. "That was the turning point of the game."

The Red thought it would escape with a tie game going into the second period before Harvard junior C.J. Young stole the headlines.

Young danced into the zone, gliding around Cornell's Doug Derraugh and Tim Vanini to stuff the puck past Red goalie Corrie D'Alessio with 43 seconds remaining in the first period.

"C.J.'s goal came with such quickness," Cleary said. "It was a great play and may have taken a little starch out of them."

Vukonich and John Weisbrod each scored in the second period to expand the Harvard lead heading into the final 20 minutes of the game.