Brown sneaks past Yale in ECACHL battle

In a highly competitive matchup Saturday, the Brown men's hockey team (6-4-2 overall, 3-3-1 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Hockey League) faced Yale (6-5-1, 3-4-1) on its home ice. Though Yale scored the game's first goal, it was Brown that put home the difference maker at the end of overtime to steal a 3-2 victory.

Yale's Mark Arcobello was the Elis' only scorer. Robert Page assisted his first goal, which Arcobello scored five minutes, 38 seconds into the first period. Just over two minutes later, Brown's Jeff Prough countered Arcobello's goal with a tally of his own off assists by Jeremy Russell and Brian McNary. Both opening goals came on power plays.

The Bears' Sean Hurley put Brown in the lead with an unassisted goal shortly after the beginning of the second period. Yale, anxious to tie the game, found the back of the net roughly midway through the third period. Again, Arcobello was the Eli to get the goal, this time assisted by Bill LeClerc and Sean Backman. The goal tied the game with 11:18 to play in regulation, eventually forcing overtime.

Brown's Eric Slais sealed the game for the Bears with the game-winning goal, just over two minutes into overtime. Slais was assisted by Chris Poli and Brian Ihnacak.

Though the Bears got the win, the team's performance was far from perfect. The Bulldogs took more shots per period, enabling them to score the game-tying goal in the third period.

The win puts Brown two points behind Princeton in the ECACHL standings, and six behind league-leader Quinnipiac.

Quakers, not so passive

In a meet in its home pool, the Penn women's swimming and diving team (5-2 overall, 2-2 Ivy League) effectively quashed the hopes of Columbia (3-3, 1-3), taking the meet 187.5-112.5.

Penn took first in most of the races, including the high-scoring relay events. The Quakers' win in the first event, the 200-yard medley relay, set the tone for the rest of the meet. Penn continued its success as Quakers Cammie Villarreal and Katharine Donohue took the top two spots in the next event, the 1,000-yard freestyle. Penn's freshmen performed particularly well in the meet: Stephanie Nerby won the 200-yard freestyle, Sara Coenen won the 100-yard backstroke by a margin of nearly three seconds, the 200-yard event by nearly five seconds and the 200-yard individual medley by over four seconds. Lauren Brandes won both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events. All three swimmers are freshmen.

While Penn took the meet and posted some fast swims by its younger swimmers, the Lions did attempt to counter the Quakers' early momentum. Though Penn won the first relay, the Lions finished one, two and three after the Quaker's "B" team disqualified. Columbia's Amy Krakauer won both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke events and Lauren Morford won the 500-yard freestyle. The winners of the diving events were split between the two teams: Penn's Janis Scanlon won the one-meter, while Columbia's Juliet DeFrancisco captured the three-meter event. The Lion's will take a rest before their next matchup against Bucknell on Jan. 20. The Quakers will next face Brown on Jan. 13.

Harvard track opens season at invitational

In its first invitational performance of the season, the Harvard men's indoor track team (0-1) performed well against larger universities, including Brandeis, Boston College and Bryant. Prior to the invitational, Harvard had already fallen to Boston College in dual meet competition.

While Harvard struggled to find top finishers in the 50- and 60-meter dashes, Derek Jones placed an impressive eighth in the 200-meter dash. George Kulakowski and Haibo Lu were Harvard's top finishers in the 500-meter dash and one-mile run, respectively. On the field, Alex Tremblay finished sixth in the long jump, and Jack Brady finished seventh in the shot put. Harvard's top individual finishers were Vito Cannavo, who took third place in the 5,000-meter run, and Christian Myers, who placed second in the weight throw.

Though Harvard was unable to put up much of a fight against its larger competitors, the Crimson did take first in the 4x400 relay. The Crimson next face Northeastern on Jan. 6.