Harvard Completes Series Sweep to Reach Quarterfinals

A season full of struggles is quickly becoming a distant memory for the Harvard men’s hockey team.

In a best-of-three series, the 10th-seeded Crimson (11-19-1, 7-14-1 ECAC) only needed two games to knock off seventh-seeded Clarkson (15-19-2, 9-12-1) at Cheel Arena in the first round of the ECAC playoffs. Harvard began the series with a 2-1 win on Friday night and didn’t look back, taking the Saturday contest, 6-4.

“We did pretty well,” said co-captain and defenseman Chris Huxley. “No matter what happened, we stuck with the game plan: get pucks in deep and see if we end up getting shots on that.”

With the two victories, the Crimson extended its winning streak to five games, the team’s longest since 2005. Harvard will continue its playoff run next week in an ECAC quarterfinals matchup against Dartmouth.

HARVARD 6, CLARKSON 4

After a low-scoring contest Friday night, neither team could find the back of the net in the first period of Saturday’s game.

That all changed in the second frame. In just a 15-minute interval, the Golden Knights scored three times, and Harvard answered twice.

Only 2:29 in, Clarkson defensemen Nik Pokulok fired a shot from the blue line that flew past senior goaltender Ryan Carroll to put the Golden Knights up by one. Less than two minutes later, Harvard responded, with senior forward Pier-Olivier Michaud tying the score at one apiece.

After Clarkson scored again, the Crimson quickly followed suit.

At the 13:40 mark, sophomore forward Alex Fallstrom managed to deflect a shot pass from junior forward Alex Killorn into the net.

In the back-and-forth battle, the home team regained the lead just 11 seconds after the Fallstrom goal, retaining the lead until the end of the period.

But at the end of the second period, Pokulok earned a game misconduct for contact to the head, giving Harvard a five-minute power play.

And the Crimson took advantage.

Three minutes into the power play, Huxley received a pass at the blue line and quickly sent the puck towards junior forward Daniel Moriarty, who had positioned himself at the right side of the net. The forward then tipped the puck past the Golden Knights goaltender to knot the score at three apiece.

“I saw [Moriarty] back door, and I just tried to give him a shot pass,” Huxley said. “He did a great job tipping it in.”

Moriarty struck again less than a minute later to give Harvard the lead for good.

“They really were huge,” said co-captain and forward Michael Del Mauro of Moriarty’s goals. “His ability to get out there and really bear down and score two goals at that point in the game was huge.”

The Crimson tacked on two more goals in the period while Clarkson found the back of the net once, giving the visitors the 6-4 victory and the series sweep.

Overall, the Harvard captains were pleased with the team’s play on Saturday night.

“I couldn’t even go through the number of guys who backchecked to change odd-man rushes in [Clarkson’s] favor to actually outnumbering them and catching them before the blue line,” Del Mauro said. “Everybody really stepped up.”

“I’ll give [Clarkson] credit. They came out and played hard, but we just stuck with the game plan and kept going,” Huxley added. “And it worked for us.”

HARVARD 2, CLARKSON 1

While five different Crimson players scored on Saturday, it was the Biega brothers who put the team on their back on Friday.

The game began auspiciously for Harvard. Just 3:32 into the contest, Fallstrom made a key pass to sophomore defenseman Danny Biega at the blue line. Biega managed to thread the puck through the legs of the Clarkson goaltender to give Harvard the early lead.

“It was a good goal,” Huxley said. “To get the first goal is important to get a little momentum going…We wanted to get people and pucks to the net, and that’s what we did.”

Neither team scored for the next 40 minutes, thanks in large part to strong defensive play. Carroll keyed the Crimson back line’s strong play, stopping 32 of the 33 shots that came his way.

“Ryan played great,” Del Mauro said. “He saw a lot of shots, and he really didn’t give up much, obviously on goals but also for rebounds.”

But Harvard’s back line couldn’t keep the home team off the board entirely. Just over four minutes into the final period, the Golden Knights evened the game at one apiece.

The tie proved to be short-lived, after the elder brother, senior forward Michael Biega, snuck a shot by the Clarkson netminder. The goal proved to be game-winning, as the Crimson held on for a narrow 2-1 victory.

“It was a crucial goal,” Del Mauro said. “[He] really just beat the goalie with a great shot.”

The victory in the first game of the series gave the visitors the momentum, which spilled over into the second game.

“I’m not saying we still didn’t have urgency, but it takes a little pressure off knowing you have a win under your belt, and you just need to stay the course,” Huxley said.

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.