WEB UPDATE, March 18, 4:05 p.m.
The Dartmouth men's hockey team's hopes for their first NCAA tournament bid in more than two decades all but evaporated with a 5-4 loss to eventual ECACHL champion Clarkson in the ECACHL tournament on Friday night. A Big Green win would have set up a championship match between No. 3 Dartmouth and No. 5 Quinnipiac, a team that the Big Green has tied and beaten in two head-to-head match-ups this season.
"If we won that game that would get us into the ECAC [finals] and we haven't been there in a long time. We wanted to give ourselves a chance to be there and unfortunately it just didn't happen," goalkeeper Mike Devine '08 said.
With the loss, Dartmouth was relegated to the runner-up match-up where the Big Green was defeated by No. 1 St. Lawrence 5-3.
"Everyone was bummed [after the loss to Clarkson] but we couldn't really sulk too much because the next day was an even bigger day... Looking back on it now all we had to do was beat St. Lawrence and we would have been in the [NCAA] tournament I think," Devine said.
Before the weekend, the Big Green was riding a six-game win streak, a stretch during which the team wrapped up their first Ivy League championship in two decades and secured a first-round bye in the ECACHL tournament.
After the bye, Dartmouth's second-round sweep of Princeton set up their semifinal match with No. 4 Clarkson, who had swept their second round series with Harvard to advance to the semifinals.
Dartmouth's back-and-forth battle with Clarkson was a 60-minute uphill struggle for the Big Green.
Clarkson took a 1-0 lead on a power play goal eight minutes into the first period, and following the early Golden Knights goal, Clarkson would never trail.
The Big Green tied the game in the second period with a shot from Rob Pritchard '09, but the Golden Knights were quick to respond, as Clarkson center Nick Dodge followed Pritchard's goal with a score of his own just 38 seconds later. Clarkson scored again to take a 3-1 lead by the end of the second period.
"It was definitely frustrating," Devine said. "We'd get a goal, and then we'd lighten up a little bit, and they'd come back and score."
Dartmouth clawed their way back in the third period, going on a 3-1 run and eventually the game at 4-4 with a goal from J. T. Wyman '08 with under two minutes to play. The Big Green appeared to have forced an overtime period.
However, after two Dartmouth scoring chances -- one blocked by Clarkson goalkeeper David Leggio and the other by the goalpost -- the Golden Knight's Steve Zalewski beat Devine for what would become the game-winning goal with 41 seconds remaining in regulation.
"I think overall it was a good team effort, things just didn't come out as we had planned ... It's just the way hockey works I guess," Devine said.
Saturday's game against regular-season ECACHL champion St. Lawrence was another tight contest. The Big Green took a 2-0 lead on goals by Nick Johnson '08 and David Jones '08, but the Saints clawed their way back through a balanced attack.
St. Lawrence broke a 3-3 tie with eight minutes to play in the third period. Devine made a save on the Saints' first attempt, but St. Lawrence's Drew Bagnall controlled the rebound and found Mike McKenzie for a one-timer goal that put the Saints up for good. St. Lawrence would add an empty-netter to win by a score of 5-3.
For the Big Green, Saturday's frustration matched that of Friday.
"We had a poster with about a minute left, things just weren't going our way," Devine said.
As far as an NCAA tournament bid, Devine doesn't have high hopes.
"I'm not really sure, but at this point we know we're not."
