With the men's hockey team trailing Dartmouth, 4-2, and less than seven minutes left in regulation, it looked like Brown was going to go 0-2 on the weekend. But the Bears scored three goals in the next five minutes before Dartmouth got another goal with just 28 seconds left, evening the score at 5-5. The game ended in a tie, making the Bears' weekend record 0-1-1, after their 5-2 loss to Harvard on Friday.
Harvard 5, Brown 2
Blood spilled onto the ice, the officials ejected three players and the penalty box got 24 visits. It sure looked like a rivalry game when Harvard came to town on Friday night.
"Those are games you definitely circle before the season on your calendar," Harvard captain Alex Biega said of his team's match-ups against Yale and Brown this past weekend.
Friday's game was the only time Harvard had beaten Brown in the last six times the teams have played.
Defenseman Jeff Buvinow '12 said the defeat was especially hard for Brown's sophomores because they had never lost to Harvard before.
Goalie Michael Clemente '12 was the biggest reason the Bears had been 3-0-0 in their last three Harvard games heading into the weekend, according to both teams' coaches. In those three games, Clemente had let in just one goal on 129 shots.
"Certainly coming into the game, we were having some nightmares of his performances past," Harvard Head Coach Ted Donato said of Clemente. "We got to him a little early tonight, and we were able to get some deflections on some plays that he really didn't have much of a chance on."
The Crimson scored two goals in the first period and added another just 2:33 into the second. With his team trailing 3-1, Head Coach Brendan Whittet '94 pulled Clemente in favor of Anthony Borelli '13.
Borelli didn't let in another goal until the third period, but the Bears couldn't come any closer than one goal away. They eventually fell by three after Harvard scored an empty-net goal with 18 seconds remaining.
Brown 5, Dartmouth 5 (OT)
Despite their two-goal deficit, the Bears felt confident heading into the third period against Dartmouth on Saturday afternoon, according to Tri-captain Aaron Volpatti '10.
"We were calm, but you could just sense that we had confidence — it's just a feeling," Volpatti said. "You knew that we were going to come back."
It was 13:41 into the third period before the comeback began, but Volpatti — who had two goals and two assists in the game — scored on a power play, cutting Dartmouth's lead to 4-3.
"Volpatti was great," Whittet said. "He's the type of kid that can make a living playing hockey — and I don't mean in some lower minors — I mean in the National Hockey League. He's just such a determined kid, and he plays so hard."
As the announcer called out Volpatti's goal on the loudspeakers, Chris Zaires '13 scored another one — just 20 seconds after Volpatti's — evening the score at 4-4 with 5:59 remaining.
As time ticked away, the crowd of 2,382 — the largest home crowd of the season — got increasingly rowdy. With three minutes left, the raucous student section — largely made up of Brown football players — decided the game was too exciting for them to wear shirts.
Buvinow sent fans, shirt-wearing and shirtless alike, into hysterics when he scored the go-ahead goal for Brown with 1:35 left in the game.
"I was ecstatic, but I knew we still had a job to do with a minute and a half left," Buvinow said.
Dartmouth pulled its goalie in favor of an extra attacker with 45 seconds remaining. The strategy worked, and Adam Estoclet scored his second of the night with just 28 seconds on the clock to even the score, 5-5. No one scored in overtime and the game ended as a tie.
Whittet, who played for Dartmouth Head Coach Bob Gaudet at Brown before becoming his assistant at Brown and Dartmouth — where Whittet was last season — said the tie was a healthy outcome.
"It was good to tie because it was fitting," he said. "And everyone goes home fairly happy with a point."
