Four unanswered goals over the opening 25 minutes aided the No. 15-ranked Cornell men’s hockey team to an early 4-0 lead before it staved off a late third-period rally by Harvard to take a series-opening victory in the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals over its bitter rival before a sold-out, raucous crowd of 4,267 at Lynah Rink on Friday night.
Junior forwards Sullivan Mack (one goal, one assist) and Ondrej Psenicka (two assists) both logged multi-point nights for the Big Red (18-6-6) in its first victory against Harvard at Lynah Rink since Jan. 18, 2019.
Fellow junior forward Jack O’Leary, sophomore forward Nick DeSantis, and freshman forward Ryan Walsh joined Mack in registering goals for Cornell on the night.
Junior goaltender Ian Shane made a game-high 22 saves en route to his 18th win of the season and the 45th of his collegiate career. Shane’s victory tied Jason Elliott for the 10th-most victories by a Big Red netminder in program history.
Joe Miller (two goals) and Ben MacDonald (two assists) each registered multiple points and sophomore goaltender Aku Koskenvuo stopped 19 Cornell shots in the setback for the Crimson (7-18-6).
“We had a good first 30 minutes and did a pretty good job in the second period, and by the third period, we didn’t start poorly, but the goal they got to make it 4-2, they got some push. We handled it okay at times and we didn’t handle it okay, but the guys know we can be better than we were tonight,” said Mike Schafer ’86, the Jay R. Bloom ’77 Head Coach of Cornell Men’s Ice Hockey. “Especially when we got the lead, we stopped moving our feet defensively and offensively, and on the forecheck, we didn’t stay aggressive and play with poise. We’ll be better tomorrow night.”
Cornell opened the scoring right at the 4:30 mark of the first period. Freshman defenseman Ben Robertson caused a Harvard turnover inside the neutral zone to set up O’Leary for a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle that…
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