Scoring a goal at Madison Square Garden was a dream come true for Derek Smith, and the reality was as good as it gets.
Smith scored off a pass from Scott Davidson at 2:55 of overtime to give No. 2 Quinnipiac a 5-4 win over No. 5 Harvard in the third annual Rivalry on Ice match Saturday night.
“It’s something I’ve dreamed of, in this rink and in that situation,” Smith said. “He (Davidson) did a good job in front and the puck kind of squirted out to me. I put it right where I wanted to on net, and it went in. It was awesome.”
That the game went into overtime was surprising. The Bobcats (19-1-3, 10-0-2 ECAC) dominated the first period, scoring three goals in 36 seconds on the way to a 4-0 lead at the first intermission. The Crimson stormed back with three goals in the second period and tied the score midway through the third. Despite the early deficit, Harvard coach Ted Donato resisted the urge to lift goalie Michael Lackey.
“It’s something we thought about after the first period,” Donato said, “but I didn’t want to single (Lackey) out in a period where, quite frankly, we didn’t show up in the first 10 minutes of the game. I thought he battled back and made some excellent saves to keep the game where it was and give us a chance to come back.”
Alex Miner-Barron opened the scoring for Quinnipiac with an unassisted goal at 7:29 of the first. In quick succession, K.J. Tiefenworth took a pass from Tommy Schutt and beat Lackey at 7:52 and Sam Anas scored off a feed from Travis St. Denis at 8:05. St. Denis made it 4-0 off assists from Anas and Landon Smith at 12:43.
The Bobcats made it look easy in the first, but the Crimson came back with a vengeance.
Alexander Kerfoot got Harvard (8-3-3, 4-2-3 ECAC) on the scoreboard at 7:11 of the second, beating Michael Garteig to his left off assists from Jimmy Vesey and Colin Blackwell. With Tiefenworth in the penalty box for hooking, Tyler Moy then scored the game’s only power-play goal off a feed from Desmond Bergin at 10:53 of the second to make it 4-2.
Ryan Donato took a pass in the slot from Colin Blackwell and beat Garteig to his glove side at 17:43 of the second to make it 4-3. Blackwell scored off an assist from Bergin to tie it at 10:06 of the third period.
“Two guys drove to the net, so when they pulled up in front of the net, I just tried to rip it on net and it went in,” Blackwell said. “In a rink like this, coach says any shot’s a good shot, so in a game like this I was just trying to put pucks on net as much as possible.”
Ultimately, it was Smith’s goal that won it for the Bobcats, and coach Rand Pecknold was glad to escape with a victory.
“You get up 4-0, and we talked about how we had to keep going,” Pecknold said. “But you have to give Harvard credit. They didn’t have a lot of scoring chances, they just finished the ones they had. I was impressed with how they battled back. Unfortunately, we’re a young team and we got a bit rattled when they made it 4-3. But we had a really good third (period) and we played well in overtime.”
