"To not score those [goals] obviously hurt a little bit," Halfnight said. "But on the other hand, the momentum was in our hands at that point. There we were, supposed to be killing penalties, and we were the ones getting the good offensive opportunities."

Momentum firmly and permanently shifted to the Cornell side come the third period. Sensing victory, the Big Red went into a defensive mode and Harvard was left watching the final seconds of its seasons tick away.

"Any team going into the third period with a lead tends to go into a bit of a defensive shell and that's what they did." Halfnight explained.

It was the inability to score, the same problem which has plagued Harvard all year long, however, which led to the Crimson's final defeat.

In 19 of its 32 games this year, the Crimson scored two goals or less. Neither game in the Cornell series proved to be any different.

"Our inability to finish really ended up being the difference in this game," Tomassoni said. "And the facts of the matter are that we came away with the goose-egg. That more than anything described our season."

The only offensive light for the Crimson came with seven minutes left in the first period off a power-play wrister by junior Jeremiah McCarthy from the left point that snuck past the screened Big Red goalie, Jason Elliott.

Cornell answered two minutes later with a Tony Bergin putback, snatching away Harvard's lead.

With no Lake Placid trip on the horizon and a season which can only be classified as disappointing, Harvard now has seven months worth of offseason to rebound and rebuild its program.

"To the underclassman, I told them that we have a long road to climb," Tomassoni said. "We're not satisfied by any means with finishing eighth. This is not somewhere we want our program to be.

"We do not want to be battling for eighth, we want to be battling for first and to get ourselves back in the national picture. I'm not talking about two years down the road either--we want to be there next season."

With this season over, the Crimson can now embark on its new challenge. Unfortunately, for the three seniors--Halfnight, Craigen and Marco Ferrari--there is no tomorrow in their Harvard hockey careers.

And when the final buzzer sounded on Saturday night, the three "fearless warriors," as Tomassoni called them, realized that miracles can't happen all the time. Harvard  1 Cornell  4

CORNELL, 4-1 at Lynah Rink Harvard  1  0  0  --  1 Cornell  1  2  1  --  4

First Period

Har--McCarthy (Ferrari) 12:55.