"I had the shot. If it was just a couple of inches to the left, that would have been the difference. That seemed to summarize our weekend in a fifteen-second span."

Junior winger Chris Bala offered that reflection after his gut-wrenching pipe-ringer set off the critical sequence of Saturday's 5-4 loss for the Harvard men's hockey team.

Though freshman center Dominic Moore's tenth career goal with 1:29 to play narrowed Clarkson's lead to one, the final verdict of the game--and the weekend--had already been decided thirty seconds earlier.

With just over two minutes to play in the final stanza, all 2,284 in attendance held their breath as Bala led a four-on-two rush on Clarkson's inexperienced rookie goaltender Karl Mattson. But a little bad luck sent Bala's shot ricocheting off the far post and on to the stick of Golden Knights' winger Adam Campana.

Campana then headed a two-on-one break, dishing the puck to linemate Don Smith, who lit the lamp at 1:58. The stunning strike effectively ended Harvard's chance to salvage any winning percentage points on the weekend.

Smith's goal capped off a complete North Country sweep of the Crimson this year, extending Harvard's ECAC record to a dismal 1-6-1 since the start of the New Year.

Hanging on to a playoff berth by a thread and a shot at home ice by a hair, the ninth-place Crimson has only four games left to secure a post-season spot. And the road ahead, including a trip to Ivy rivals Princeton and Yale, will not be easy.

In fact, judging by the final results--a 4-2 loss to St. Lawrence on Friday and a 5-4 defeat to Clarkson on Saturday--a fair-weather fan may have already given up on Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni's underdog team.