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.

No one epitomized the effort better than junior forward Trevor Allman. On one rush midway through the third period, he was checked as he carried the puck over the blueline. He recovered the puck and got hit by a Clarkson defender again as he skated around the net. Once more he grabbed the loose puck and suffered a third blow as he sent the disc towards Grant.

Unfortunately for Harvard, Clarkson, with its five six-footers on defense, proved too big and strong to surmount. Allman's shot, despite all the efforts of the shooter, deflected harmlessly off a defenseman. Only five Crimson shots in the third actually reached Grant, and the netminder turned them all aside.

"Clarkson is the biggest and strongest team in the league," Tomassoni said. "Our kids showed a lot of courage."

Harvard lost its seventh ECAC game of the year, but it lost in a manner befitting a competitive hockey team. A team challenging for first place might have also lost playing the tough, disciplined hockey the Crimson displayed. The highly ranked Eagles lost to the Golden Knights by the same score.

Games like this would have surely resulted in wins against lesser teams.

"This is the effort we need on a night in-night out basis," Tomassoni said.

Consistency, however, is not a trick Harvard has learned this year. Once the clock struck midnight and Friday turned into Saturday, Harvard resumed playing like a winless team. St. Lawrence entered Bright Hockey Center and absolutely skated circles around Harvard.

The Crimson could not match the Saints' speed. St. Lawrence players appeared constantly open around the Crimson goal; every rush appeared to turn into an odd man rush.

To compensate, Harvard oscillated between notpressuring the puck at all and sending too manyplayers at the oncoming attacker.

"We have two problems," Adams said. "Either wecan't put 60 minutes together like we did [Friday]night against Clarkson in the second. Our otherproblem is not coming out at all, which is what wedid tonight."

The Saints' fifth goal neatly summed up theCrimson's game. Prestifilippo went behind the netto play the puck and pass it out for a breakout.The goalie had no options, and his final pass wasblocked and knocked into the vacant net.

At least junior forward Brett Chodorow savedHarvard the embarrassment of its first ECACshutout since 1995.

"Our team was a step slow out there [Saturdaynight]," Tomassoni said. "I'm hoping it was anaberration, we just didn't have any jump."

If Saturday night was an aberration, it is arecurring one. A couple more gimp performances andthe Crimson's season will be officially dead.While Tomassoni may hope Saturday's game was anaberration, the fact is Harvard has now lost eightECAC games.

Last season these same Saints earned the lastplayoff spot with an 8-12-2 record. The Crimsonwill need to go 8-4-1 in the second half just tomatch that. This season, by far Harvard's worstdivisional start ever, one more loss ties it forits worst overall start ever, 2-9-1, set in1940-41.

As dark as it seems now, all hope is not lost.The Crimson will fly out to Omaha in two weeks fora pair of non-divisional games against theUniversity of Nebraska-Omaha. A couple of wins inthe cornfields would at least allow for a measureof holiday cheer.

Hopefully over the Christmas recess, senior BenStorey (mononucleosis) and sophomore forward ChrisBala (broken wrist) will regain their health andHarvard can start afresh in the new year