CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – After getting shutout by Cornell Friday, it was more of the same for Harvard Saturday against Colgate.
Colton Point made a career-high 51 saves, while Colgate scored twice on the power play en route to a 2-0 win over the Crimson at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center.
Willie Brooks and Bobby McMann scored for the Raiders, who snapped a four-game losing streak with the win.
“We’re all trying to battle thought right now; obviously, we’ve been through a little bit of a slump,” Point said. “Hopefully this is a step in the right direction to get back to our winning ways.
Merrick Madsen had 19 saves for Harvard. The Crimson had not been shutout this season entering the weekend.
“I thought we had some good looks [tonight],” Harvard coach Ted Donato said. “I do think we need to get some second and third looks and get inside and create a little more havoc in front of the net. I thought the effort was there; we put the pucks on and we kept coming.”
It was the second night in a row that Harvard faced a hot goalie. On Friday, Cornell’s Matthew Galajda blanked the Crimson for this third consecutive shutout, two of which came against the Raiders last weekend, while Point has been among the nation’s best all year.
“He’s an elite-level goaltender and has a bright future, and he’s an unbelievable competitor,” Colgate coach Don Vaughan said of Point. “But he’s a team-first guy; he’ll never look anywhere else but in the mirror.”
With Colgate up 1-0 thanks to Brooks’ goal, Harvard controlled possession for stretches of time late in the second. But the Raiders defense and Point kept the Crimson off the board.
“It was looking like he was in the zone; he wasn’t going to let one in regardless of what happened,” Vaughan said of Point.
The Colgate sophomore made a big save off a rebound to Harvard captain Eddie Ellis on the right post with seven minutes left in the period, and then spun around in the crease to grab a loose puck off the stick of Lewis Zerter-Gossage in the closing minutes of the period.
“They’re a possession team; we knew we’re not going to win the possession battle tonight,” Vaughan said. “I was looking for a bit more of a response from my team after how we played last night (a 2-1 loss at Dartmouth) I thought we were lethargic and didn’t play with a lot of injury.
Colgate took a 1-0 lead on Brooks’ power-play blast from the left point at 15:26 in the first. It was the junior’s first goal of the season.
The Raiders extended their lead 1:09 into the third period, when McMann used a screen by Adam Dauda to snap a shot past Madsen and into the net to make it 2-0. It was his team-leading 11th goal of the season.
Vaughan said Colgate entered the game knowing they weren’t going to win the possession battle against Harvard. Instead, the coach was looking for more spark from his team after the loss to Dartmouth Friday.
“We didn’t watch a lot of video from last night,” Vaughan said. “To me, it wasn’t going to be about X’s and O’s tonight; it was going to be whether or not we could find the energy and bring that part of our game back. We did and we’re fortunate to find a way to win on the road against a very good team.”
Harvard finished the night 0-for-5 on the power play against Colgate. Overall, the Crimson threw 86 shots on net this weekend, but had nothing to show for it.
“Back-to-back, those are two excellent goalies,” Donato said. “Soon, if we’re not there already, we’re at the time of year we’re we have to find a way to break through. We had some chances and he made some big saves, but it’s not good enough to say ‘hey, we ran into some good goalies and we had a lot of shots.’”
