For a brief moment Friday night, the Harvard men's hockey team looked like the squad that two ECAC coaches predicted would finish in first place this season.

Harvard cast aside its history of sluggish starts and put forth a tough, scrappy effort against a much bigger Clarkson team.

It fought through checks, won the battles along the boards and generated a series of offensive chances--starting just four minutes into the game with a shot by leading scorer Steve Moore from the right face-off circle that bounced off the crossbar.

The Golden Knights must have been in shock. Fresh off a 2-1 victory over No. 5 Boston College, they surely had to expect an easy victory against the worst team in the division.

"Our players played real well," said Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni. "We turned in a real gutsy effort tonight."

Everything looked right for the Crimson, even though they were playing without suspended captain Craig Adams. For its effort Harvard emerged from the opening period with a 1-0 lead when senior forward Rob Millar, the trailing winger on a 2-on-1 rush led by freshman Jeff Stonehouse, knocked in the rebound from Stonehouse's shot.

Millar, who had 27 points last season and a 13-goal, 12-assist sophomore season, finally netted his first goal of the year.

"We really caught them off guard in the first period," Stonehouse said. "We were playing pretty physical."

Of course, this game was not a fairy tale. Harvard could not sustain itself through the second. Two penalties to open the period set the tone for the frame and Clarkson struck twice during the period, scoring first on a power-play goal by Philippe Roy on the power play.

Clarkson dominated after a second goal at 12:22, raining shots on sophomore goalkeeper Oliver Jonas. It appeared that like three other 1-0 ECAC leads Harvard has had this year, the opposition would answer back with a deluge of goals.

This night was different.

The Crimson dam held and Jonas somehow kept the puck out of the net. Among his many saves was an amazing diving poke check to knock the puck off Clarkson top-scorer Erik Cole's stick as the center attempted to skate around the netminder on a breakaway with under 10 seconds remaining in the period.

Jonas made his case for the starting job with his third straight strong game. His play brimmed with confidence as he came out of the net to challenge shooters, stopping 32 of 34 shots. He gave his team a chance to tie it up in the third.

"Ollie was outstanding tonight," Tomassoni said. "The way he's playing I foresee more ice time for him."

The Crimson emptied its tank trying to get that equalizer. It rediscovered the intensity of the first period and gave all it had in battling through checks to reach freshman goaltender Shawn Grant.