BC, BU semi-tough

Gallant Harvard effort is of little consolation

By Jim McCabe, Globe Staff, 2/4/2003

here were another 20 minutes to play in last night's opening game of the 51st Beanpot, it was tied, 1-1, and Boston University senior captain Freddy Meyer was sitting in the locker room with his teammates when the thought occurred to him: ''You hate to play in the consolation game.''

What is unclear is exactly how he even knew such a thing as a consolation game existed. Had he stumbled upon a hockey dinosaur -- a Terrier who knew the first thing about a consolation game?

Meyer may be able to explain why he made such a statement, but he'll never be able to say he experienced a consolation game at this fabled ice hockey gathering, which once again attracted a sellout crowd (17,565) to Causeway Street. That's because the defenseman scored on a low slap shot through a screen at 13:21 of the final period to give BU a 2-1 win over Harvard and put the Terriers into the championship game for the ninth straight year, the 19th time in 20 years, 36th time in 40, and 42d overall.

In other words, you could say they're in a familiar setting, in position to win their eighth Beanpot in nine years when they meet Boston College -- a 5-2 victor over Northeastern -- next Monday evening.

It was not a breeze, mind you, because Harvard (13-7-1) gave the Terriers (16-10-2) fits before succumbing in a Beanpot opener for the fifth consecutive year.

''It was two good teams going at each other,'' said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni, now 1-6 in this event. ''We had our chances and so did they, but we just didn't finish.''

Indeed they didn't finish what they started, because after Harvard's Kenny Smith scored the game's first goal at 6:59 of the second period -- a wrist shot from the top of the left circle set up by Tom Cavanagh's win of a faceoff -- the Crimson never got anything else past BU goaltender Sean Fields (28 saves). The junior from Edmonton, Alberta, who blanked Harvard, 3-0, earlier this season, has put the stop to 64 of the 65 Crimson shots he has faced this season.

None stir the emotions quite like the one he stopped at 12:11 of the third. His team had forged a tie, thanks to Bryan Miller's score at 11:19 of the second, but here was Fields staring at a most unpleasant sight -- two Harvard guys bearing down on him with only defenseman Ryan Whitney there to help. Freshman Charlie Johnson had the puck on the right wing and, said Fields, ''Whitney played him pretty well.'' But Johnson took an inside route, shoveled across a nice pass, and ''he got a pretty good shot off.''

The ''he'' was Harvard's outstanding sophomore defenseman, Noah Welch. Following the play beautifully, he got in position to accept Johnson's centering pass, but the play captured the team's overall misery: He couldn't finish it off, mostly because Fields sprawled and made what he called ''a toe save,'' though Welch was shouldering much of the blame.

''I had one shot that could have made the difference and couldn't put it in,'' said Welch, who felt doubly bad since he had been beaten on Miller's splendid rush up ice to tie things earlier. On that play, the sophomore defenseman slipped the puck between Welch's legs, moved around him, and beat goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris (32 stops) high to the left side.

Those lowlights notwithstanding, Harvard seemed poised to make it into a championship game for the first time since 1998, if not for that swing of emotions in the third.

''A nice save by your tender,'' said Meyer, ''always gives an emotional lift to your team.''

Sure enough, exactly one minute after Fields's ''toe'' save kept the game tied, the Terriers did what they always seem to do.

''We get some bounces, things seem to go our way,'' said coach Jack Parker. The latest example was an easy-to-overlook detail, David Klema's work in the right circle. He won a faceoff and was able to push a pass right onto Meyer's stick, the kid from Sanbornville, N.H., sitting just inside the blue line. He had been called for three penalties and was ''looking for a chance at redemption'' when he let loose with a shot that barely left the ice.

Grumet-Morris, so brilliant for most of the night, didn't see it until the last second, which was too late. Low to the far side, the puck was through a maze of legs, skates, and sticks, then past him. The Terriers, with 6:39 to play, just had to hold on for another shot at the championship game.

It's a position they're very familiar with, and thanks to Fields's effort down the stretch (a stuff of Brendan Bernakevitch with a little more than minute to play and a glove save on Tim Pettit with 9.2 seconds left being highlights), they got there.

Again.

This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 2/4/2003.
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