Leave it to the flashy junior to make everyone else look like a senior citizen.

Yes, the focus in Saturday night's ECAC quarterfinal game between Harvard and Cornell was supposed to be the six Crimson skaters who, with a win or a tie, could be the second senior class in succession to skate off Bright Hockey Center ice for the final time knowing that they would see more collegiate action.

But Steve Martins--modest though he is off of the ice--has this knack for drawing attention to himself, for good or for bad.

And Saturday, Martins was the little girl with the curls--when he was bad, he was awful, racking up four stupid penalty minutes in the first period of play.

But when he was good, boy was he good, lending a hand in all five Harvard goals in a 5-3 win over the Big Red (8-17-5) which earns the Crimson (21-4-4) a trip to Lake Placid, N.Y., and the ECAC Final Four against Brown on Friday evening. The Bears beat Colgate last night 3-2.

"That number 27 can play the game, can't he?," marvelled Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni after Martins' two-goal, three assist outburst. "He's the human highlight film, [giving us] just unbelievable individual efforts there on his two goals."

Please, someone rush a taped copy of that last goal to the vaults for safe-keeping so that future generations might enjoy it as much as the assembled 2,539 did last night. On his knees and sliding toward the right of the goal, Martins still managed to pull the puck around Cornell goalie Andy Bandurski and tuck it just inside the left post.

"Those highlight goals are full of luck, anyways," Martins said. "I was just trying to put the puck on net, and I did, but what a great feeling it is to score like that."

Good thing Martins was up to snuff, because Cornell came out of its gate ready to bump as many bodies as need be to stay alive and force a Sunday finale.

Once again, the Big Red snatched the game's first goal. Not exactly one to savor, either--Geoff Lopatka's dump-in found a chink in the glass and caromed on goal where Harvard goalie Aaron Israel "just kind of flubbed it," in his own words, letting it trickle in. It was Lopatka's fifth goal in three play-off games, two more than he notched in the entire regular season, and it gave Cornell the early lead.

But Harvard struck back quickly on the power play (2-for-4 on the night) through Brian Farrell's team-leading 26th goal of the year, a hard upper- shelf wrist shot with assists from Martins and Chris Baird (three assists for the senior, a night after the flu kept him bed-ridden) at 12:22.

And when Harvard senior captain Sean McCann screamed a slapshot over Bandurski's right shoulder 68 seconds later, the Crimson took the lead for the first time. It was McCann's 17th goal of the year, tops by a defenseman in Harvard history, surpassing a mark he co-held with Dick Greeley '48 coming into the night.

"[It's a] good way to go out, I think that's the best way to express it," McCann said of the game. "It got fairly physical out there, and I think this is a good kind of game going into the play-offs against other good teams."

But after Mike Sancimino evened the game at two-apiece on his power-play goal late in the first, the game began to resemble a war of attrition which neither side was going to win. Israel settled down after giving up his first goal, making 22 good saves on the night, and Bandurski continued to hang tough in the Cornell net.

Unfortunately for the Big Red faithful in attendance, the second period saw a late, momentum-changing Harvard goal for the second night in a row, as Ben Coughlin poked home a rebound with 16 seconds to go to give Harvard the lead for good.

"I think we deserved this win," Tomassoni said. "There's no doubt in my mind that we played much better hockey this evening than we did last night, although we still need to focus on playing 60 minutes of hockey every night, especially going into next weekend."

A point emphasized by Martins play--he is so often a highly visible gauge of his teammates' play, and like the rest of the Crimson, he took about a period to get mentally into the game.

"What a stupid, stupid penalty," Martins said of his roughing infraction which wiped out a 5-on-3 Harvard power play. "There's no room for plays like that, especially when we're heading for the NCAA's and teams that we can't get away with stuff like that against."

But by the final stanza, the Cantabrigians were rolling, and Martins put dual exclamation points on the win. First came a point-blank, Cannon blast of a slapshot, a power-play goal at :56 of the third which surprised even Martins.

"I thought I had about 20 seconds to shoot it, and I thought in slow-motion, 'I've got a shot, here it goes...'" he said. "I was able to put it top shelf, higher than I actually thought I could get it."

And then he tallied the game-clincher, which came just over three minutes after Dan Dufresne's first goal of the year had pulled Cornell within 4-3. Fitting that he scored from his knees, for Martins' immense talents deserve a genuflection every now and then.

"He's got a lot of talent, a lot of tools, and when he combines them with his hard work, you really can't stop a guy like that," McCann said. "He was really focused tonight, and that brought on quite a tremendous effort." HARVARD, 5-3 at Bright Hockey Center Cornell  2  0  1  --  3 Harvard  2  1  2  --  5

First Period

Cor--Lopatka 8 (Papp) 4:17.

Har--Farrell 26 (Martins, Baird) 12:22. (PP)

Har--McCann 17 (Martins) 13:30.

Cor--Sancimino 12 (Drouin, Bumstead) 17:07. (PP)

Second Period

Har--Coughlin 11 (Martins) 19:44.

Third Period

Har--Martins 23 (Maguire, Baird) :56. (PP)

Cor--Dufresne 1 (Lopatka, Chartrand) 13:48.

Har--Martins 24 (Baird) 17:15

Saves: Cor--Bandurski 11-10-8-29; Har--Israel 9-5-8-22.

Power Play: Cor--1 for 6; Har--2 for 4.

Attendance: 2,539.