CANTON, N.Y.--How did it come to a third game?

Saturday night's contest was what a tournament game should be: back-and-forth action with emotions flowing wildly. For two periods, this intensity kept Harvard and St. Lawrence dead-locked as both teams refused to back down.

Even the fans were finding themselves forgetting to breathe in the heat of the excruciatingly close contest.

Up and down the ice, both teams created stellar scoring opportunities.

Harvard senior goaltender Tripp Tracy (36 saves) was unconscious as he stopped 16 St. Lawrence shots in that period alone, while St. Lawrence's Clint Owen (31 saves) collected 22 of his own saves in the second period.

"Tonight's game was three different hockey games," Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "First period it was all them. Then we dominated them in the second period, while the third was just tight defensive play on both sides--we played well, very well."

Harvard came back from one-goal deficits twice in the second period, with sophomore Henry Higdon evening the game at 2-2 with just over one minute remaining in the stanza.

Then with only four minutes remaining in the third, however, the tie was broken--for good. The Saints dumped the puck innocently into the Harvard zone, but it never made it behind the net. The puck got stuck on the right side of the net and Tracy desperately attempted to cover it with his glove.

Both St. Lawrence snipers, Bob Prier and captain Burke Murphy, pounced on the exposed puck and hacked it away from Tracy onto the stick of teammate Ryan Cassidy, and Cassidy then put away the game at 3-2.

"After a good third period [Friday] night we thought it would fall into our hands," Harvard captain Brad Konik said. "But I think we are still confident."

So emotionally and physically exhausted, Harvard and St. Lawrence had to rebound for a final face-off to determine who would get the last ticket to Lake Placid. Harvard  2 St. Lawrence  3