"They were better man-to-man and they had two men on all the loose pucks," Mazzoleni said. "They kicked our ass all over the ice."

Still Harvard managed a goal in the first and second periods and held a one-goal lead entering the third. In its previous two games, the Crimson had successfully defended one-goal third period leads. But not Saturday night.

On a sequence where Jonas was bombarded repeatedly with rebound shot after shot, the puck bounced out to the slot to the stick of Randy Dagenias, who wristed a shot through a screen high over Jonas' blocker at 7:16

Just 24 seconds later, senior Jason Ralph corralled the puck along the boards between the right faceoff circle hash marks and let go an apparently harmless shot that found its way inside the far post to turn a slow cruise to victory for the Crimson into a stunning lead for Union.

From there, the Skating Dutchmen were content to sit back on the lead and continually clear the zone, icing the puck if necessary, and let the clock wind down.

"This was the best 60 minutes of hockey we have played all year," Union Coach Kevin Sneddon '92 said.

Harvard opened the scoring at 17:43 of the first period on the power play. Freshman winger Kenny Turano made a diving save to nudge the puck to freshman defenseman Dave McCulloch at the center point. McCulloch fluttered a shot that found its way through traffic past Union goalie Brandon Snee. It was the rookie's first goal of his Harvard career.

Though Harvard scored on the power play, its play with the man advantage during the game was close to abysmal. Overall, the Crimson went 1-for-5 which included a five-on-three advantage in the second period. Even McCulloch's goal came off a broken play, not something Mazzoleni drew up before the game.