BOSTON – Harvard battled tooth and nail – every time they tied the game up, Union responded.
The Dutchmen couldn’t respond to Henry Bowlby’s second goal of the game. He notched the game winner with 5.1 seconds remaining in the overtime session to give the Crimson a 4-3 victory Saturday afternoon.
With 14 seconds left, Harvard won a neutral zone faceoff. Wiley Sherman pitched the puck through the neutral zone where Bowlby took control at the offensive blue line. He beat the defender and slipped in past Jake Kupsky.
John Marino also picked up an assist on the goal.
“I was ready to chip it in the zone but Wiley made a nice bounce pass, it was right on my tape,” Bowlby said. “I decided if I could take it to the net and got around the defense.”
Union coach Rick Bennett said if he had to do that faceoff over again, he would have put a left shot center out there with Ryan Donato taking the draw for the Crimson.
It was a two and half minute span, that both Bennett and Ted Donato will be going over in practice this week. With the game knotted up at one, Ryan Scarfo scored his 12th goal of the season to give Union a 2-1 lead with a shot on the top of the right circle at the 6:24 mark with J.C. Brassard and Cole Maier notching the assists on the goal.
“I thought we had it in the first, I thought Harvard took it to us in the second, and in the third it was anyone’s game,” Bennett said. “Overtime was the same. It was the old activity versus achievement.”
The lead only lasted for 1:37 as Henry Bowlby scored his fourth of the season for Harvard at the 8:01 mark with Jack Badini notching the assist along with Nathan Krusko. The game remained tied for 32 seconds when Scarfo fed his linemate Anthony Rinaldi and Union took a 3-2 lead.
Twenty-four seconds later at the 8:56 mark of the third frame. Michael Floodstrand found the back of the net for Harvard. Benjamin Solin picked up his first assist of the season along with Jake Horton.
“It was a good resilient win for the guys,” Ted Donato said. “Towards the end of the game it was nice to see our guys keep their composure to make a play. With 14 seconds left outside our zone, certainly we weren’t expecting an offensive chance … it was a nice win and hopefully something we can build off of.”
The Dutchmen dominated the first period outshooting the Crimson 13-5 in the opening frame. Union took plenty of shots from the point trying to pick up a rebound chance or screen Harvard’s Merrick Madsen.
They finally converted when Sebastien Vidmar’s shot was deflected by Ryan Walker who beam lined to the goal from in between the circles. Jack Adams also picked up a secondary assist with the goal coming at the 16:58 mark of the first period.
“It’s a mid-lane drive and a lot of teams work on and it was nice to finally get one of those,” Bennett said. “The problem is we don’t have enough of those, that goes to show you, size does not matter. We need some of our guys, who may be a little bit bigger than 5’9” to drive to that net. We need to come to games with a sense of urgency.”
Union continued to control the play for the first half the second period, but the momentum changed in the back half of the period. It started when Parker Foo took a delay of game penalty as he failed to attempt to move the puck from the corner.
On the ensuing power play, Ryan Donato skated around the offensive zone and snapped a shot off in the slot that beat Jake Kupsky. Ty Pelton-Byce and Reilly Walsh were credited with the assists on the goal scored at the 12:22 mark of the middle frame..
The Crimson continued to put pressure on the Dutchmen as they outshot Union 11-10 in the period. Harvard almost made it 2-1 when Donato received a pass at the doorstep but Kupsky got his left pad on it. At the next whistle which was about two minutes later, they reviewed it but the puck didn’t cross the goal line.
“We have an operations guy who watched the replay who thought live it had a chance to go in,” Ted Donato said. “To me when anytime there’s a goal it’s worth taking a look at it. Kupsky made a great save there, and I thought Merrick made some great saves.”
Kupsky stopped 24 shots while Madsen stopped 36 in the victory
