Both goaltenders carried the play in a sluggishfirst twenty minutes--23 players were on the icefor their first Beanpot final, and the nervousnessshowed in all but two of them, namely Israel andTaylor. Only fourteen shots were fired between thetwo teams in the period, but Israel come up hugeat its end, robbing Greg Callahan with ahighlight-reel lunging pad save.
"BC just took it to us [early], and we didn'trespond well enough," captain Sean McCann said. "Idon't want to make excuses and say fatigue was thereason, but some nights you just don't get all thebounces."
Harvard was playing its third game in fournights, but it pressed forward to get the keyfirst goal. McCann scored at 14:10 of the secondon the power play for his 13th goals of the year,which eerily came with John Joyce in the Eaglepenalty box for tripping at 13:13 of the second.Steve Martins drew the defense to him and foundMcCann in deep at the goal line; the defensemanfound the top shelf, and Harvard led 1-0.
That slim one-goal lead lasted achingly closeto game's end, but it wasn't to be. With 8:09 toplay, BC Coach Steve Cedorchuk called his timeoutattempting to stem the flow of Harvard'sthird-period momentum, and the ploy workedperfectly.
The pendulum swung back to Harvard's end of theice, and it was Don Chase who capitalized on thepersistent Eagle forecheck, taking a feed from RobLaFerriere and beating Israel high frompoint-blank range with only 4:32 remaining.
And BC carried that edge in the play intoovertime, generating most of the extra period'schances before Ashe administered the death blow.
"[But] we'll turn this into a positive," McCannsaid. "We're a tough team mentally and physically,and we'll bounce back. It's going to be hard toget over, but we've got two important game comingup this weekend..."BOSTON COLLEGE, 2-1 (In OT) at Boston Garden
BC 0 0 1 1 -- 2Harvard 0 1 0 0 -- 1
First Period
No scoring.
Second Period
Har--McCann 13 (Martins, Maguire) 14:10. (PPG)
Third Period
BC Chase 8 (Hymovitz, Laferriere) 15:28.
Overtime
BC--Ashe 2 (unassisted) 8:05.
Saves: BC--Taylor 5-9-10-2-26;Har--Israel 9-7-4-3-23.
Power Play: BC--0 for 3; Har--1 for 5.
Attendance: 14,,448.