CANTON, N.Y.--Of all the road weekends, Clarkson-St. Lawrence has to rank among the worst.

A grueling seven-hour bus ride for the privilege of battling ECAC contenders--this year in first and second place, respectively, and No. 7 and No. 9 in the nation--is enough to make any hockey player roll his eyes. HARVARD  4 ST. LAWRENCE  5 (OT) HARVARD  1 CLARKSON  5

For 59 minutes and 27 seconds Friday night against the Saints, none of that mattered. The Harvard men's hockey team had a 4-3 lead and firm control of the game. Then the North Country catastrophe began.

Off a neutral-zone face-off win, Saints junior defenseman Justin Harney released a seemingly harmless long slapshot from two feet behind the Crimson blueline. Junior goaltender J.R. Prestifilippo--who had been rock solid all night--inexplicably reacted late to the blast and it trickled off his right pad into the back of the net, forcing overtime.

A stunned Crimson (11-14-2, 6-12-2 ECAC) offered no further resistance and freshman star Brandon Dietrich--wide open in the low slot--roofed an Al Fyfe feed to give St. Lawrence a 5-4 overtime victory. The Crimson never cleared the zone in overtime, and its defense did not improve much the next day, falling to Clarkson 5-1 at Cheel Arena.

"They won the face-off back, and I screwed up basically," Prestifilippo said. "The team played great and I wasn't there for them. I can't tell you one thing that puck did to get by me."

A victory over St. Lawrence (18-10-3, 13-3-3) would have snapped the Saints' eight-game winning streak. The Saints were one of two teams in the ECAC hotter than Harvard--Clarkson is the other--and the win would have continued to build momentum for Harvard.

Of course, the loss Friday night still does not account for the Crimson's poor effort Saturday afternoon.

"I'm not concerned with the fact that they are No. 9 or No. 7," said captain Craig Adams. "I'm upset we didn't get the two points, pure and simple."

Losing the two points may be the toughest part of the weekend. The sweep dropped the Crimson to ninth place, behind Vermont.

Harvard will now have to pull a sweep of its own at home this weekend to avoid heading back up to the North Country for the first round of the playoffs.

"We certainly don't want to come back here," said junior defenseman Matt Scorsune.

No. 9 St. Law. 5, Harvard 4 (OT)

Before Harney took his fateful shot to tie the game. St. Lawrence Coach Joe Marsh had already scripted his post-game speech. Despite leading by only one, Harvard had such command of the game that the final half-minute seemed pro forma.

"We caught a lucky break. Harvard had slowly taken over momentum of the game." Marsh said. "If we had lost, I would have told my team we got a kick in the ass from a team who could play."