Cornell Draws Harvard in Quarterfinals

Photo by DSPics.com

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's hockey team will face rival Harvard in the quarterfinals of the ECAC Hockey tournament in a best-of-three series that opens up on Friday, March 12, at Lynah Rink in Ithaca. Cornell, the tournament's second seed, will battle the ninth-seeded Crimson with the winner of the best-of-three series heading to Albany, N.Y., for the league semifinals on March 19.

Cornell, which ended the regular season with a 17-8-4 record overall and a 14-5-3 mark in league play, will try to knock off the Crimson for the third time this season. Cornell defeated Harvard, 6-3, on Nov. 7 at Lynah Rink, and took a 3-0 victory over the Crimson on Feb. 19 at the Bright Hockey Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Harvard enters the weekend series with a 9-19-3 mark and a 7-12-3 record in ECAC Hockey action. The Crimson advanced to the quarterfinals after dispatching eighth-seeded Princeton in two games, 4-2 and 3-0, on Friday and Saturday, respectively, in Princeton, N.J.

This will mark the eighth time in the last 11 years that Cornell and Harvard will meet in the post-season, but the first time that the two teams will meet in the quarterfinal round since the 1999-2000 season. The last time Cornell took three meetings over the Crimson in the same season came during the 2002-03 season that saw Cornell knock off Harvard, 5-2 at Lynah Rink, 4-3 at Bright Hockey Center and 3-2 in overtime at the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., in the ECAC Hockey Championship. That same year also marked the last time Cornell advanced to the NCAA Frozen Four.

Cornell and Harvard will be meeting in the quarterfinal round for the first time since the 1999-2000 season. That year, Cornell dropped a 2-1 contest at Lynah Rink in the regular season, but rallied for a 6-2 win at Bright Hockey Center, then claimed the first two games of the best-of-three series at Lynah Rink by identical 4-3 scores. This will mark the fourth time that Cornell and Harvard will meet in the quarterfinals, with Cornell winning by 6-2 and 4-2 margins in 1990, Harvard claiming a 5-4 win and a 5-3 win in 1994, and Cornell advancing by virtue of a 2-2 tie and a 4-1 win in 1997.